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SPEECHES, 
 
 REVIEWS, REPORTS, & 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEJ^fl *"B1LUNT 
 
 Xnc-gork : 
 
 JAMES VAN NORDEN & CO., 
 
 No, 60 WILLIAM-STREET. 
 
 1S43, 
 

Mr* /K. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK. 
 
 Discourse before the New- York Historieal Society, 1827, 1 
 
 Review of the Principles of the Holy Alliance, 29 
 
 Report to American Institute proposing Annual Fairs, 69 
 
 Argument in case of Erastus Root v. Chas. King, &c., 75 
 
 Historical View of the Formation of the American Union, 121 
 
 Review of the Cherokee Question, 127 
 
 Address before the New-York Historical Society, 1839, 151 
 
 Report on Common Roads, 197 
 
 Review of Ivanhoe, 207 
 
 Address of the Home League to the People of the United States, 1842, 223 
 
 Report to the National Convention, 1842, 241 
 
 Lecture on Coal, before the American Institute 257 
 
AN 
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 ON 
 
 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1827. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY: 
 
 WE live in an extraordinary age. It may emphatically be 
 denominated an age of improvement. Mechanical inventions, 
 scientific discoveries, and advances in political knowledge, are 
 daily bringing about great changes in the condition of society : 
 and scarcely have we time to contemplate these changes, and 
 to speculate concerning their probable effects, ere our antici 
 pations are realized, and our attention is occupied by new im 
 provements, whose results are beyond the grasp of the most 
 vivid imagination. 
 
 The community in which we live remarkably exemplifies 
 these striking characteristics of the age. It comprehends 
 within its bosom many who have seen its day of small begin 
 nings, and who, within their own lives, have witnessed the rapid 
 growth of a few provincial dependencies into this powerful 
 confederacy. These considerations cannot be overlooked by 
 any person familiar with American history ; and, yielding to 
 their influence, I propose, in discharge of the duty assigned to 
 me by the Historical Society, to review the history of the Eu 
 ropean settlements in America, and their influence upon the 
 condition of the civilized world, 
 
By contemplating the condition of Europe at the time of the 
 first migration to this continent ; by reviewing the motives which 
 indiicvd its early jolliers to leave their native land for a savage 
 wilderness ; by setting forth the principles by which they were 
 governed, and i ie course of conduct they pursued, we are 
 enabled justly to estimate the extent of their sacrifices, the value 
 of the inheritance which has been transmitted to us, and the 
 nature of our duties towards those who are to follow us. In 
 this manner we associate ourselves with those who precede us 
 in the march of existence ; we constitute ourselves a part of 
 those who give character to a nation ; we share in their ad 
 versity and in their prosperity ; we partake of their labours ; 
 we rejoice in their success ; we identify ourselves with the 
 cause for which they suffered, and at once live with our ancestors 
 and for our posterity. 
 
 Such a review has important uses. It compels us to reflect 
 upon the nature of our institutions, the manner in which they 
 have been built up ; and by recurring to their foundations w r e 
 add new strength to the principles by which they are sustained. 
 We are animated to fresh exertion in our national career, by 
 going back to the original fountains from which American free 
 dom and prosperity have been derived. 
 
 History is experience teaching by example ; but it is not by 
 ordinary examples that her wholesome lessons are taught. The 
 mean and selfish motives, which so often enter into the induce 
 ments to glorious achievements, are forgotten in the lapse of 
 ages. The petty intrigues and personal quarrels which so often 
 influence the fate of empires, pass to oblivion with those by 
 whom they were fomented ; and the character of the age, 
 marked by its prominent moral and intellectual qualities, alone 
 remains to animate or to warn succeeding generations. 
 
 The distinctive marks of the period, from which we date the 
 commencement of American history, are easily ascertained. 
 The obscurity which hangs over the origin of other nations, 
 and which affords ample opportunity for the erection and demo 
 lition of plausible theories, does not darken the period in which 
 the European settlements in Americawere established. Science 
 and learning shed their full light upon the communities from 
 
3 
 
 which they migrated. Their motives and actions were exposed 
 to the spirit of inquiry which distinguished the age. The pecu 
 liar characteristics of the early colonists are fully detailed and 
 faithfully preserved by their contemporaries, and we are not 
 left to conjecture for the materials of American history. 
 
 In examining the annals of the settlements now composing 
 the North American Confederacy, our attention is not attracted, 
 nor a feverish excitement produced, by a series of brilliant 
 military achievements. No splendid conquests nor murderous 
 battles, in which myriads of the human race were sacrificed, to 
 extend a boundary line, or perpetuate a dynasty, enliven the 
 matter-of-fact history of the American people. The tinsel 
 decorations of martial renown are not the appropriate orna 
 ments of our national annals. They have a more real and solid 
 interest. They come down to us adorned with their triumphs ; 
 but they are not the triumphs of physical force. They are the 
 triumphs of intellect, of liberty, political and religious. They 
 are the triumphs of an enlightened policy over the prejudices 
 of a scholastic and bigotted age ; of free institutions over the 
 abuses of the feudal system ; of the right of conscience over 
 persecution; of freedom over despotism and slavery. These 
 are victories over which the philanthropist need not mourn. 
 They are debased by no alloy. They are achieved at a com 
 parative small expense of blood and treasure ; but they are 
 more valuable to mankind, and more momentous in their con 
 sequences, than all the battles ever gained by all the heroic 
 scourges of humanity who have graced the annals of warlike 
 achievement. They have a permanent interest, which is con 
 nected with the improvement of our nature and the happiness 
 of man ; with the ascendancy of all that is enlightened and free 
 and ennobling, over what is ignorant and slavish and debasing. 
 We, and all who come after us, participate in such triumphs, 
 and are the rightful heirs to their glorious results. The annals 
 of the American people are thronged with such victories. From 
 their first inception to the present day they form one great pro 
 cession of triumphs. Their whole tendency has been to eman 
 cipate the human mind from the bonds of prejudice, to extend 
 
and perpetuate the sway of reason, to establish political, religious 
 and commercial freedom, all essential parts of one great system, 
 upon a firm and permanent b 
 
 A the period \vlien America was discovered, the political 
 condition of Europe was of the most arbitrary character, and 
 the tendency of its civil institutions endangered even the few 
 privileges which had been preserved from the grasp of civil and 
 religious tyranny. The feudal system had received a fatal blow, 
 but its relics incumbered the face of society, and presented the 
 formidable obstacles to the progress of improvement. 
 All the absurd doctrines which had taken root during the 
 dark ages, and had grown up under the protecting shade of 
 monastic superstition, still flourished, and were received as 
 established truths. The divine right of a certain race to govern 
 a kingdom, was maintained with as much zeal, as if it had been 
 a dogma essential to salvation. The infallibility of the head of 
 the Pupal Church, or the authority of an individual selected by 
 a few cardinals, to bind the consciences of his fellows in all 
 matters of faith, was still unquestioned. This extraordinary 
 authority even extended to temporal affairs, and the monarchs 
 of the leading powers were in tiie habit of availing themselves 
 of it as a great political engine. The principles of commerce 
 were conformable to the general character of the age ; and the 
 efforts of those few rulers \\lio made it an object of attention, 
 were directed rather to secure a monopoly, than to extend the 
 trade of their kingdoms, by developing their resources, and by 
 encouraging domestic industry. It was a sort of predatory 
 commerce, instead of a fair and legitimate exchange of the pro 
 ductions of human industry. In short, throughout Christendom, 
 the religious feeling was intolerant, the political system despotic, 
 and the commercial policy narrow and monopolizing. 
 
 The first tendency of this state of things was to reduce the 
 newly discovered world to the most abject condition. Accord 
 ing to the established code of public law. the American continent, 
 with its inhabitants, became the property of the monarchs whose 
 subjects discovered it. Alexander VI., who then filled the Papal 
 chair, arrogating to himself, as Christ s vicegerent, the right of 
 
disposing of all heathen countries, divided the new discoveries 
 between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, and these powers 
 immediately began to extend their sway over the western 
 hemisphere. The adventurous soldiers and mariners of those 
 nations, then in the zenith of their power, soon reduced the 
 numerous but timid aborigines to subjection ; and measures 
 were at once adopted to render the wealth and resources of the 
 new possessions available to the European governments. These 
 measures are too faithfully related by some of the companions 
 of those adventurers, whose hearts were not wholly closed to 
 the appeals of suffering humanity. The predominant feeling of 
 the Christian world is there fully developed in action ; and 
 bigotry, stimulated by avarice, is seen exciting the followers of 
 Cortez and Pizarro, to indiscriminate plunder and massacre of 
 a race, whose peaceful and inoffensive habits offered the most 
 powerful plea in their behalf, and whose undeserved fate has 
 excited almost a general regret, that their country was ever 
 exposed to the enterprise and cupidity of Europe. Even sub 
 mission on the part of the natives caused no alleviation of their 
 sufferings. Doomed to labour in the mines for gold, to satisfy 
 the insatiable avarice of their conquerors, they found reason to 
 envy the fate of their more fortunate countrymen, who had fallen 
 in battle. If these acts of inhumanity had been unauthorized, 
 we might have ascribed them to individual depravity; but 
 unfortunately they are essential parts of the system adopted 
 towards America, and the legitimate results of principles 
 preached from the pulpit and practised by the sovereigns of the 
 age. The discussions between Las Casas and Sepulveda, 
 whether the natives of the new world became the subjects of 
 the Spanish crown, or the private property of the conquerors, 
 show the small estimation in which American rights were held 
 by European casuists. At the present day, public opinion could 
 not tolerate the idea, that a people might be reduced to slavery? 
 and their property seized by the conquerors, sole!y because 
 they were of another religious faith ; but according to the rea 
 soning of that age, the inhabitants of heathen countries were 
 destitute of civil and natural rights. Religious intolerance 
 

 
 erected itself into an infallible tribunal, and adjudged their 
 claims " to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," to be un 
 supported by Gospel or reason. The same anti-social prin 
 ciple u principle which sprung from the union of scholastic 
 philosophy and Gothic ignorance soon became ascendant in 
 politics as well as religion, and the doctrine of perpetual and 
 unalienable allegiance was now introduced, to secure the 
 dependency of the European settlements in America, and to 
 ivdm-e their inhabitants to the political level of aborigines. 
 The right of kings to rule was no longer earned by services in 
 the cabinet or field, but was maintained as depending upon 
 religious faith. The doctrine which now infests Europe under 
 the appellation of legitimacy, and is vindicated under the pre 
 tence of upholding civil order, then existed as a divine right, 
 which could not be questioned without offending the Deity; 
 and the ominous ruin of church and state, in which religious 
 intolerance and civil tyranny are leagued to sustain each other 
 by alternate appeals to spiritual hopes and human fears, threat 
 ened to extend its sway over both worlds, and to deprive the 
 objects of its vengeance of all earthly asylum. 
 
 If the claim of the Spanish crown to the whole western con 
 tinent had been unquestioned, its condition at this time would 
 probably have resembled that from which her colonies have so 
 recently emancipated themselves. It is impossible to estimate 
 with accuracy the effect, which the establishment of that claim 
 to this hemisphere would have produced upon the happiness 
 and freedom of mankind ; but the injuries inflicted by the 
 blighting policy of that court upon all territories subjected to 
 its authority, entitle us to presume, that it would have caused 
 results equally extensive and destructive to the best interests of 
 humanity. 
 
 Fortunately, however, for the cause of truth ; fortunately for 
 mankind, the northern parts of America were claimed by other 
 European powers, and, as they did not offer the same tempta 
 tions to Spanish cupidity, these claims in time acquired a valid 
 character. Neither the climate nor soil allured the first Ame 
 rican adventurers to these shores. Avarice could not be easily 
 
gratified by the productions of North America, nor could wealth 
 be acquired without labour, by those who established them 
 selves there as colonists. The consequence of this happy 
 poverty was, that the colonists were not men of desperate for 
 tunes and desperate characters, seeking by violence wealth, to 
 squander in the accustomed haunts of vice at home. They 
 were men migrating here to found a nation. They were seek 
 ing here a permanent country, and to build up institutions for 
 themselves and their children. 
 
 It is still more fortunate, that whilst these causes preserved 
 the Northern continent from the grasp of Spain, and prevented 
 any premature settlements there, the spirit of reform was 
 actively at work in Europe, and the collision between those 
 who sustained the ancient superstitions, and those who waged 
 war upon them, was preparing fit materials for the population 
 of the transatlantic republics. Persecution and violence on 
 the part of the dominant party, was furnishing colonies for 
 America from among the intrepid, the conscientious, and the 
 pure minded. Those who valued truth, religious faith, and a 
 peaceful conscience above all else, were thus driven into the 
 ranks of the American settlers. 
 
 The reformation which commenced shortly after the dis 
 covery of this continent, had now fully awakened the public 
 mind in Europe. The first reformers were private individuals, 
 unsupported by a party, and only sustained by their unextin- 
 guishable enthusiasm and confidence in a good cause. Their 
 first partisans were drawn from the poor, the humble, the 
 oppressed ; from among those, who not being interested in 
 perpetuating old abuses and deriving no authority from them, 
 added no weight to the side they adopted, except the moral 
 power of their disinterested testimony. They brought no 
 armies, no overflowing coffers, no bands of feudal dependants, 
 to the cause they espoused. Their whole strength was a 
 moral force ; but that lever rested upon public opinion, and 
 the ancient order of things was shaken and overthrown by its 
 omnipotent action. Men began to examine for themselves in 
 matters, before that time regarded as beyond the reach of 
 
investigation. A spirit oi inquiry pervaded society, and the 
 test of an awakened reason was applied to the claims of the 
 existing religious establishments. The monarchs who then 
 governed the great European kingdoms, were not slow in 
 perceiving, that the surest foundations of their thrones were 
 immediately connected with the superstitions of the Church. 
 They accordingly took measures to enforce its denunciations 
 against such dangerous opinions, and Europe soon beheld her 
 sovereigns combining to sustain a religious establishment, that 
 in the plenitude of its power had compelled the proudest 
 monarchs to descend from their thrones, and kneel as suppliants 
 at the feet of imperial Rome. 
 
 Political considerations induced some to swerve from this 
 course ; but from the commencement of the Reformation, in 
 1520, until the settlement of Plymouth just a century after 
 wards by a few English non-conformists, the European govern 
 ments manifested the most intolerant and persecuting spirit 
 towards all their subjects who assumed the liberty of thinking 
 for themselves in matters of faith. 
 
 In Germany, where the Reformation broke out, a furious 
 contest was carried on for more than a century between the 
 Catholics and Protestants, and the surrounding powers were 
 often involved in the war as allies or abiters. The treaty of 
 Westphalia, in 1G48, gave them both peace and religious tole 
 ration ; but before that pacification it seemed as if the fiends 
 of darkness had been let loose to carry on the quarrels of the 
 Church. It is true, that in this portion of Europe the reforming 
 party maintained itself, and brought the conflict to a successful 
 result; but this success was purchased by the most painful 
 sacrifices. Their religious freedom was maintained by unre 
 mitting efforts both in the cabinet and in the field. It was 
 guarded by a sword constantly unsheathed. So far from 
 being able to offer an asylum to others, they were themselves 
 reduced to the extremity of distress, and were often indebted 
 for their preservation to combinations of circumstances almost 
 miraculous. It was not in a country thus afflicted and overrun 
 by contending armies, which, from the length of the contest, 
 
9 
 
 degenerated into mercenary bands, ready to enlist under the 
 most celebrated leader seeking wars as their proper employ 
 ing Band plunder for their reward ; that Christians, who 
 loi^d for peaceful toleration, could find the object of their 
 desires. 
 
 The other kingdoms of Europe presented similar scenes of 
 confusion and anarchy. The Netherlands were distracted by 
 a rebellion, which was provoked by the impolitic and unrelent 
 ing severity of the Spanish Court, and terminated in their 
 separation from Spain. This rebellion or civil war grew out 
 of religious intolerance, and continued nearly eighty years, 
 wasting the strength and treasures of Spain in fruitless 
 attempts to reduce the United Provinces to submission, and 
 destroying their security and happiness during this protracted 
 contest. 
 
 The contemporaneous history of France does not afford a 
 more favourable account of the tranquillity of that powerful 
 kingdom. The infamous massacre of St. Bartholomew, planned 
 and executed by the court, indicates the spirit in which the 
 religious contest was carried on ; while the wars of the 3d 
 and 4th Henrys against their own subjects ; the numerous 
 towns, computed at more than four hundred, destroyed by the 
 contending sects, and the distrust constantly evinced when 
 ever the leaders met in times of hollow truce, all manifest the 
 wide extent of the religious feud, and the deeply rooted 
 rancour harboured towards the Protestants by the dominant 
 party. Scotland and England were governed upon the same 
 intolerant principles. 
 
 All Europe was vexed by religious warfare. The quarrels 
 and persecutions of ambitious monarchs and intolerant priests, 
 had wearied the patience of their long-suffering subjects, and 
 they wishfully cast their longing eyes in search of an asylum in 
 that newly-discovered continent beyond the western ocean. The 
 accounts of a new world teeming with plenty and bringing forth 
 spontaneous productions under ever-sunny skies, were now in 
 all men s mouths, and were eagerly listened to by the persecu 
 ted despairing Protestants. It seemed as if, in the moment of 
 
10 
 
 deepest distress, that their desponding hearts were cheered by 
 the suggestions of some angel-spirit, that beyond the waste of 
 waters which had confined the human race to the old conti 
 nent, to suiter all that humanity could endure, or tyrants inflict, 
 there was another and a better world. The followers and com 
 panions of Du Plessis and Coligny in France ; of Barnevelt and 
 Grotius in Holland ; of Hampden and Milton in England, all 
 looked to America as an asylum. 
 
 It was from this class this dissenting persecuted minority, 
 that the ancestors of the American people were drawn ; and it 
 was owing to the universality of this feeling among them, that 
 the tide of emigration swelled so rapidly when it began to flow. 
 Whilst the eastern colonies were settled by the English Puritans, 
 the adjacent provinces offered a similar shelter to the Hugenots, 
 and the Dutch and German Reformers. This description of 
 population gave a sobriety of purpose and a religious character 
 to the whole colonies, and prevented the southern settlements 
 from degenerating into mere trading establishments. 
 
 It also enforced the necessity of a tolerating spirit. Our 
 English ancestors were not only Protestants in religion, but they 
 were Dissenters from the political faith of their countrymen. 
 In their struggles against the religious supremacy of the crown, 
 they often questioned its temporal authority. They felt a yearn 
 ing for the dawn of that day of civil freedom, which their de 
 scendants now enjoy. They were in fact the vanguard of that 
 stern, austere band of Presbyterians, who in the next generation 
 established the commonwealth upon the ruins of the monarchy, 
 and brought their misguided sovereign to the scaffold for offences 
 against the people of England. They had not, it is true, such 
 well-grounded ideas of civil freedom, as are now prevalent. They 
 were not born under a written constitution ; nor had they grown 
 up under a free and well-balanced government ; but they had 
 been taught the value of freedom in the school of persecution. 
 The cruel tyranny which had driven them from their own 
 country : the hardships and privations they had undergone in 
 establishing themselves here, were all so many testimonials 
 against an arbitrary government, and unanswerable proofs in. 
 favour of the rights of man. 
 
11 
 
 In the lapse of a few years, the feelings which were natu 
 rally entertained against the particular sects, by whom the first 
 settlers had been exiled, were modified. Succeeding genera 
 tions became heirs only to the strong dislike against tyranny in 
 general ; and the want of rich religious endowments, by depri 
 ving theological teachers of all temporal motives to persecution, 
 took away the chief cause of religious intolerance. Accord 
 ingly, when the mother country undertook to straighten the 
 bonds of government and to reduce the colonies to uncon 
 ditional submission, we find them overlooking minor points of 
 difference, in order to preserve their political freedom. The 
 Catholics of Maryland, the Episcopalians of New- York and 
 Virginia, the Hugenots of Carolina, and the descendants of the 
 German and Dutch reformers, who were planted in several 
 parts of the Union, joined with the Puritans of New-England 
 in opposing the usurpations of Great Britain. They all felt 
 that unless their resistance was successful, both civil and re 
 ligious freedom would be at the discretion of the British ministry, 
 and, in the presence of the common foe, they buried their theo 
 logical differences. As they had purchased their religious free 
 dom by relinquishing their homes and kindred, they now made 
 a sacrifice of sectarian prejudices upon the shrine of civil 
 liberty and national independence, and religious toleration was 
 thus made the key-stone of the American Union. But though 
 it is a fortunate circumstance that the dissenters of other nations 
 made settlements in this country, there is no reason to regret 
 that the chief provinces, which materially influenced the cha 
 racter of the whole, were settled by English non-conformists. 
 
 The country from which they came, though far from furnish 
 ing a perfect model for a free government, was infinitely supe 
 rior in that particular to any then existing in Europe ; and from 
 its arbitrary features and the despotic principles of its ruling 
 monarch, this sect had uniformly dissented. It is not, however, 
 by their partiality for free institutions alone, that the English 
 Puritans were peculiarly fitted to become the founders of a 
 great nation. The qualities and principles which distinguished 
 this extraordinary sect are well worthy of a chief place among 
 
1 
 
 the circumstances which formed the character and controlled 
 the destiny of the American people. The Puritans not only 
 rejected the creed of the Catholic Church, but they had sepa 
 rated from the Protestant Church, because in their judgment it 
 ^till tainted with Romish superstitions. They aimed at a 
 more thorough reformation, and to bring their chosen flock back 
 to the primitive simplicity of the apostolic age. Their system 
 of faith was one of self-denial, humiliation and prayer. It 
 rendered every passion subservient to a vehement desire of 
 knowing and executing the will of Providence. All temporal 
 motives, ambition, avarice, self-love, all were swallowed up in 
 this one absorbing feeling. Earthly riches they regarded as 
 dross. Their hearts were fixed on that spiritual wealth, which 
 the meanest member of the congregation claimed as his inheri 
 tance. Human honours they despised, as transitory and de 
 pendent upon the breath of man. They were heirs to immortal 
 crowns, and celestial. thrones and eternal honours awaited them, 
 when they were released from the bonds of flesh. For this 
 : elimjuished all those objects which the mass of mankind 
 pursue with such ardour, and became the tenants of a prison, 
 the victims of the Star-Chamber, and the subjects of persecution 
 and exile. 
 
 Dangers could not deter such men ; for death they welcomed 
 as a translation to the realms of bliss. Titles and honours 
 could not seduce ; for their imaginations were beyond the reach 
 of temporal motives. In their paroxysms of religious enthusi 
 asm, in their gloomy fits of humiliation and despair, they seemed 
 subjects for pity and commiseration ; but when these mental 
 clouds had passed, they came to the business of life with an 
 intensity of purpose, and a thorough devotion of every physical 
 and mental faculty, which triumphed over difficulty and trampled 
 every obstacle under foot. This state of religious exaltation 
 proved an admirable support in all parts of their trying career. 
 It enabled them to continue their course with unfaltering step, 
 when men under the influence of ordinary motives would have 
 turned back in despair. It sustained them in their cruel perse 
 cution at home ; in the solemn moment of parting from their 
 
13 
 
 native land ; in their long and dangerous voyage on the Atlantic ; 
 in their many trials in the American wilderness ; and in the 
 gloomy hour when the storm of ministerial wrath, which had 
 been so long gathering, burst on their defenceless settlements. 
 In all these trials they acted like men whose destinies were 
 under the special superintendence of an overruling Providence. 
 The claims of their friends and kindred were in vain presented 
 to their minds. Their hearts yearned towards those objects of 
 affection and the pleasant places of their childhood ; but reli 
 gious duty forbade them to submit to the commands of an arbi 
 trary government, and they turned their backs upon their native 
 country, with a fixed determination never to return. 
 
 A stormy ocean in vain arrayed itself in unusual terrors. 
 Their little bark was laden with a greater burden than Caesar 
 and his fortunes. It bore the founders of a mighty republic. 
 In their own estimation, it contained the chosen church, and 
 they felt as if under the special protection of heaven. The 
 ocean, which presented such obstacles to their escape, would 
 preserve them from the corruptions of the old world. It placed 
 them beyond the influence of countries grown old in abuses. 
 A bleak and barren shore awaited them upon their arrival ; but 
 there they were free from ecclesiastical persecution and political 
 tyranny. They were freed from the mischievous example of 
 institutions vicious in principle, and were at liberty to establish 
 a social community, whose members were far advanced in 
 civilization upon a broad and natural basis. 
 
 With these views, upon their landing, they entered into a 
 social written compact, the first the world ever saw, by which 
 it was agreed, that the common will should be the law of the 
 colony. They then chose agovernor from amongthemselves, and 
 established their republican government far from the debasing 
 influence of Europe, without the sanction of a charter or grant 
 under any royal seal, in the midst of the untouched forest, with 
 the canopy of heaven for a covering, and the waves of the 
 Atlantic rolling between them and the abodes of civilized man. 
 
 Under such circumstances was the first English colony planted, 
 which possessed the power of sustaining itself; and to the hard- 
 
14 
 
 ships which its founders endured, and to the principles by which 
 they were actuated, may be attributed the fearless and uncom 
 promising spirit of tiie colonists. They were always prompt to 
 oppose the pretensions of England, and when force was re 
 sorted to, they were found as ready to play their part in the 
 field as in the halls of debate. 
 
 Another circumstance growing out of the religious feelings, 
 which entered so largely into the inducement to American colo 
 nization, had an important influence upon the institutions of the 
 new colony. Its founders were surrounded by their families, and 
 among the moral causes which contributed to its stability and 
 prosperity, we cannot assign too high a rank to the example of 
 those devoted women, who left the comforts to which they had 
 been accustomed for the sake of their persecuted friends, and 
 to sustain and cheer them amid their dangers and privations. 
 It was no inconsiderable cause of the success of this settlement, 
 that it \vas established upon the permanent foundation of do 
 mestic happiness ; and that its founders felt, as husbands and 
 fathers, solicitous for the moral and religious education of the 
 rising generation. Their views extended to posterity. They 
 were religious and educated themselves, and they intended that 
 their descendants should be so too. Actuated by these motives, 
 they made provision, shortly after their landing, for teaching the 
 gospel and for the education of the children in the colony. 
 The noble system of common schools, to which the eastern 
 states are indebted for no small share of their reputation and 
 happiness, and which is so fast spreading through the country, 
 dispelling ignorance and preparing the rising generation for the 
 proper administration of our excellent institutions, is a lasting 
 monument of their wisdom, and will long remind their country 
 men of the sagacity of the fathers of New-England. 
 
 These remarks, illustrating the forecast of the eastern colo 
 nists, are equally applicable to the manner in which the founders 
 of the British colonies, in general, framed their political institu 
 tions. It is true, that in some of the provinces they were in 
 duced by different motives to migrate to this continent ; but 
 they all considered these wilds as their permanent homes. 
 
15 
 
 The North American settlements were not like the colonies 
 of Greece and Rome, mere extensions of the parent states to 
 contiguous territories ; nor migrations to countries inhabited by 
 people as much advanced as themselves in civilization. They 
 were the commencement of new communities in a new world. 
 Neither did they resemble the European settlements in the East 
 and West Indies. These were commercial establishments, and 
 the adventurers always looked with impatience for a return to 
 their own country, with fortunes accumulated abroad as the 
 reward of their industry and privations. The colony was re 
 garded as a place of banishment, and they sought rather to 
 carry away wealth, than to confer any lasting benefit upon the 
 place of their temporary abode. These views essentially mo 
 dified their policy and conduct. So long as they were per 
 mitted to pursue without interruption their schemes of gain, 
 they took no interest in the welfare of the colony. Its legislation 
 might be impolitic, its privileges invaded, its vital interests ne 
 glected ; but while they considered themselves merely as 
 sojourners, they did not feel called upon to make personal sacri 
 fices, in order to vindicate its political rights. 
 
 Not so with the settlers of the North American colonies. 
 They had turned their backs upon Europe for ever, from motives 
 which were not liable to be changed by the lapse of time. 
 Their migration was the permanent adoption of another country. 
 It was colonizing upon an original footing. The colonists were 
 intelligent, educated and civilized. They had been taught by 
 bitter, by personal experience, that the political institutions they 
 had fled from were not fitted to promote the freedom or happi 
 ness of the mass of the community. They had no inducements 
 to copy the frame of their government from those, which at 
 home were overgrown with the abuses of antiquity. Privileged 
 orders had no charms for them. They were all equal in rank, 
 in sufferings and in sacrifices. They were not compelled, from 
 their relations with those around them, to erect a feudal system 
 or a magnificent hierarchy in the American wilderness. All 
 this was indissolubly connected in their minds with imprison 
 ment, persecution and exile. 
 
10 
 
 But they were placed here in a productive country, where a 
 virgin soil offered its treasures to their industry; with all the 
 arts of civilization to aid them ; possessing all the experience; 
 which the failures in government for four thousand years could 
 teach, and free from the motives and interests that have planted 
 the principle of corruption and decay in the foundation of other 
 governments. In the vigour of youth, and unshackled by pre 
 judice, they commenced their course from the goal, which other 
 nations had attained after centuries of exertion. Well were 
 these things characterized by a statesman,* whose eloquence is 
 the ornament of his country, as the " happy auspices of a happy 
 futurity ! Who would wish that his country s existence had 
 otherwise begun ! Who would desire the power of going back 
 to the ages of fable ! Who would wish for an origin obscured 
 in the darkness of antiquity ! Who would wish for other em 
 blazoning of his country s heraldry, or other ornaments of her 
 genealogy, than to be able to say, that her first existence was 
 with intelligence ; her first breath the inspirations of liberty ; 
 her iirst principle the truth of divine religion !" 
 
 Under the operation of these causes, the colonies grew with 
 unexampled rapidity. Before the close of a century, a native 
 population of European origin, exceeding half a million, had 
 established themselves on the eastern shores of North America. 
 The colonies now began to attract the particular attention of 
 the mother country, and its parental care was displayed in pro 
 jecting measures to appropriate their resources to its own use, 
 and so to modify their governments as to prevent any effectual 
 opposition to this ungenerous design. 
 
 A course of reasoning similar to that which had deprived the 
 aborigines of all natural rights, and appropriated their wealth 
 to European use, now threatened to reduce the colonists to an 
 inferior and dependent condition, and to monopolize their trade 
 and resources. The lupse of a few years had made the inhabi 
 tants of the old world forget, that the colonists and themselves 
 had a common origin ; and they began to regard them as if 
 
 Mr. Webster s Oration at Plymouth, Dec 22, 1820. 
 
 
17 
 
 they had lost their cast by taking up their abode in a continent, 
 which, in their minds, was associated with all that is unculti 
 vated, ignorant and barbarous. While these natural associations 
 depressed the colonists in the public esteem, the European 
 monarchs were urging their claims to political sovereignty, upon 
 the ground that their subjects could not expatriate themselves. 
 The duty which a citizen owes to the community in which he 
 lives, and by whose laws he is protected from unjust violence, 
 was perverted into the doctrine of perpetual and unalienable 
 allegiance, and this principle was made the corner-stone of the 
 colonial system. In establishing this system the European go 
 vernments had in view a two-fold object. The first was national, 
 and was intimately connected with the extension of their trade, 
 and the other political. This latter aimed at the complete con 
 trol of the colonies, and to govern them by officers appointed 
 in Europe. A rich harvest was thus furnished for the depend 
 ents upon the court, and the American colonies became the 
 receptacle for the decayed servants of the crown. 
 
 The maxims of European policy towards America are few 
 and comprehensive. They consisted in rendering the colony 
 entirely subservient to the interests of the mother country ; in 
 monopolizing its commerce, and in retarding its progress 
 towards improvement, in order the more effectually to prolong 
 its dependence. All foreign trade was prohibited to encourage 
 the navigation of the mother country ; and all intercourse with 
 the colonial possessions of other nations was forbidden, lest these 
 commercial regulations should be evaded. In order to protect 
 home industry, laws were enacted discouraging manufactures 
 in the colonies ; and the raw materials produced there were 
 sent to the ports of the parent kingdom, to be thence distributed 
 to other nations, or to be manufactured for the use of the colo 
 nists. Scarcely had they shaken off the bonds of religious in 
 tolerance, ere the desire of gain sought to bind down the Ame 
 rican continent, their place of refuge, in the chains of commer 
 cial monopoly, and to render it a mere dependency upon Europe. 
 The communities which were established here were not only 
 deprived of all transatlantic trade, but of that intercourse with 
 
 
18 
 
 contiguous countries which was so much more necessary to their 
 comfort and prosperity. They were not only prevented from 
 directing their industry to those employments which would best 
 repay their labour; and from trading with those countries 
 which furnished the cheapest supplies and afforded the best 
 market ; but by a rigorous application of the system to the 
 whole continent, they were shut out of the pale of improvement, 
 deprived of the stimulus, which a spirit of emulation among 
 adjacent communities imparts in the pursuit of knowledge, and 
 doomed to labour in an insulated colony for the prosperity of a 
 transatlantic power, that rewarded their industry by monopo 
 lizing its profits, and repaid their faithful allegiance by obstruct 
 ing them in their progress to civilization. 
 
 A system so inherently unjust necessarily provoked oppo 
 sition on the part of the inhabitants of the British Provinces in 
 North America; and a series of measures adopted by the 
 mother country to carry it into effect, prepared the way for 
 the success of another essential part of the American system. 
 
 The principles by which the colonists were actuated, were 
 entirely at variance with colonial dependence. They were 
 indeed compelled, after many violent struggles, to partially sub 
 mit to the navigation acts ; but even this qualified dependence 
 was the cause of continual disputes, and to all pretensions to 
 political supremacy, they offered the most determined resist 
 ance. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that in the British United American 
 Provinces, representative governments of a popular character 
 were established previous to the British revolution. In the 
 proprietary colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Carolina and 
 New-Jersey, the political institutions were originally formed 
 upon enlarged views of civil freedom. In Virginia a house of 
 Burgesses was suddenly introduced by the colonists into their 
 frame of government, without any authority from home, and 
 very much against the wishes of the directors of the company. 
 The original settlers of our own state were emigrants from 
 Holland in the best period of her existence, when that republic 
 was invigorated with the spirit of new-born liberty. Wo 
 
10 
 
 accordingly find them, shortly after the transfer of the colony 
 to the British crown, contending for the privilege of self- 
 government, and compelling the Duke of York, who was the 
 proprietor, to acquiesce in that characteristic right of an 
 American community. The governments of the eastern pro 
 vinces were essentially democratic, and it may be safely 
 asserted that the public will was early manifested in the acts of 
 all the colonial governments. In consequence of the popular 
 form of their political institutions, their opposition to the pre 
 tensions of the mother country assumed an official shape. It 
 was not the hasty ebullition of individual feeling, unauthorized 
 and unsupported, but the result of deliberation, and evinced a 
 widely extended discontent. It could not be punished as the 
 misconduct of a few riotous persons, but must be treated as the 
 premeditated act of the whole community. 
 
 The many instances of insubordination and disobedience in 
 America, which are so much complained of by the English 
 historians, are so many testimonies in behalf of the fearless 
 spirit of the colonists, and show the insecure tenure of royal 
 authority over them. It was never their intention to be con 
 trolled by a government on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 They maintained, in the technical language of the time, "that 
 the laws of England were bounded by the four seas, and did 
 not reach America." The General Court of Massachusetts 
 made this answer to a charge against that colony, of having 
 disobeyed the navigation acts ; and on another memorable occa 
 sion, upon information that a general government had been pro 
 jected for all colonies, the magistrates and clergy of that province 
 unanimously resolved, " that if such governor were sent, the colo 
 ny ought not to receive him, but to defend its lawful possessions. 
 
 The limits of this discourse will not permit an enumeration 
 of the many acts of resistance offered by the inhabitants of the 
 other provinces, to the colonial system of Great Britain, long 
 before those difficulties, which immediately preceded the Revo 
 lution ; but I may be allowed to refer with pride and exultation 
 to the testimony borne by Chalmers, the official historian of the 
 British government, to their refractory spirit of independence. 
 
20 
 
 " The Americans," says this writer, " have had all along a 
 reluctance to order and good government, since their first estab 
 lishment in their country. They have been obstinate, undutiful 
 and ungovernable from the very beginning ; from their first 
 infant settlements in that country. They began to manifest 
 this spirit as early as the reign of Charles the First, and disputed 
 our right of fishing on their coasts in the times of the Common 
 wealth and the Protectorate." 
 
 In these conflicting principles and views, may be distinctly 
 traced the causes of the Revolution, It was impossible, in the 
 nature of things, that communities with such opposing interests 
 and claims ; governed upon such different maxims ; and so se 
 vered by distance and sentiment, should long continue to ac 
 knowledge a common authority. The voice of nature had de 
 creed the independence of the United States, long before the 
 Continental Congress resolved to vindicate that independence 
 by arms. 
 
 The expulsion of the French from Canada soon brought the 
 pretensions of England and her colonies into direct collision. 
 Whilst France held that dangerous position in the interior, and 
 stood ready to assist the colonies in case of difficulty, Great 
 Britain was unwilling to add to the causes of discontent. But 
 after the conquest of Canada, and its cession at the peace of 
 1763, that obstacle being removed, a more systematic policy 
 was adopted to strengthen the bonds of colonial dependence. 
 The complete subjection of the colonies was to be secured by 
 means of an army stationed in America, and maintained at their 
 expense. The taxes to be raised, were not. however, to be at 
 the control of the local assemblies, lest in time they might con 
 trol the army ; but were to be laid and collected by the autho 
 rity of Parliament. It was also contemplated to render the ex 
 ecutive and judicial departments of the American governments 
 wholly dependent upon the British Ministry ; to divide the colo 
 nies into provinces of more convenient size ; and to new model 
 the colonial department. In order the more effectuallyto exe 
 cute this arbitrary design, all settlements in the interior were 
 
21 
 
 prohibited, with the view of keeping the civilized population 
 more within the reach of the trade and power of the mother 
 country. 
 
 This indication of the arbitrary disposition of the British go 
 vernment, and its manifest determination to reduce the colonists 
 to unconditional submission, united them as one nation in oppo 
 sition to its authority. The spirit of the people was roused to 
 open resistance. They appealed to the sword to sever the bond 
 of union between England and her colonies, and a power inde 
 pendent of Europe arose on this side of the Atlantic. 
 
 The feelings and principles of the civilized inhabitants of 
 America were now represented by an independent government, 
 and embodied themselves in a course of national policy. This 
 remarkable event, which, when justly considered, will not yield 
 in interest and importance to any that ever engaged the atten 
 tion of historians, soon caused a material modification in the 
 colonial system. 
 
 The statesmen of Europe were no longer at liberty to regulate 
 the affairs of America solely with reference to European inte 
 rests. American interests were urged upon their attention, and 
 were ably su^runed by an American government. It is true, that 
 these claims were not readily allowed. Europeans could not at 
 once bring themselves to regard an American state as entirely 
 independent, and of equal rank with the ancient kingdoms of the 
 old world. The court of France considered our independence 
 to be but little more than a transfer of allegiance ; and her in 
 cessant efforts to obtain an undue influence in our public coun 
 cils, evince her desire to render us partially dependent upon her 
 self. The other governments of Europe, with the exception of 
 Sweden, were influenced by similar prejudices respecting the 
 communities on this side of the Atlantic, and refused to acknow 
 ledge an independence, which was already achieved, until the 
 course of events rendered the acknowledgment of little impor 
 tance. Their pretensions and principles with regard to the 
 inferiority of the western continent, had been engrafted by the 
 practice of nearly three centuries upon the law of nations. 
 
22 
 
 The rivers \vhich constituted our boundaries, had been shut 
 from immemorial time by the jealousy of the powers, to whom 
 they belonged, before they became boundary lines. The fishe 
 ries on the Grand Bank had been always enjoyed by the subjects 
 of some European government, and participation in them had 
 been regulated by various treaty stipulations. All access to the 
 islands in the American seas was debarred by a rigorous colo 
 nial system, and the vast territories which were still dependent 
 upon Europe, and comprehended far the greatest portion of 
 the continent, were subjected to the same strict monopoly. 
 
 Besides these obstacles, which were presented by European 
 pretensions to the enjoyment of our independence, there were 
 others growing out of popular prejudices ; the condition of the 
 country and the character of the system from which it had just 
 been emancipated. Among these we need only enumerate the 
 state of manufactures and the mechanic arts ; the estimation in 
 which domestic productions were held, and the means of internal 
 intercourse at the close of the Revolutionary War, to show how 
 dependent w r e were upon Europe ; and by recurring to the re 
 gulations of the British government repressing colonial manu 
 factures, and to her jealousy of all intercommunication between 
 the different provinces, we discover the cause of that depen 
 dence and the means of remedying the evil. 
 
 The sagacious men who established the American confede 
 racy, and reconciled the discordant interests of its different mem 
 bers under one government, perceived that our independence 
 even then was but partially achieved, and planned a system of 
 policy, well designed to complete the emancipation of this country 
 from all its colonial burdens. The religious liberty, for the sake 
 of which their ancestors came to America, was secured under 
 a free and tolerant government, and made the cementing prin 
 ciple of our union. Political independence had been obtained 
 after a severe struggle, and our right of self-government formally 
 admitted. Commercial freedom alone was wanting. Whilst 
 our intercourse with the rest of America depended upon the 
 permission of the governments of Europe and American com 
 merce was shackled by colonial regulations, our independence 
 
23 
 
 was incomplete. Free trade, therefore, became necessary to 
 the full enjoyment of our rights as a nation. This constituted 
 an essential part of the American system, and the efforts of the 
 government were directed to its accomplishment. 
 
 Most of its foreign and domestic policy has had in view the 
 establishment of this principle. The Federal Constitution origi 
 nated in the desire to free the trade of the United States from 
 the embarrassments to which it was still subjected by the colo 
 nial policy of Europe. The war with France and the late war 
 with Great Britain, grew out of the conflicting principles ofthe 
 commercial systems of America and Europe ; and the influence 
 of this great and important maxim of free trade as promulgated 
 by the government of the United States, may be easily seen in 
 every part of their history. It may well be called a great and 
 important principle. It comprehends within its scope, not only 
 the freedom of the trade of the United States, but the entire 
 emancipation of the rest ofthe continent from the colonial system, 
 and the establishment of a new commercial policy, founded upon 
 principles of equality and exact reciprocity. 
 
 The system of reciprocity in trade, which was so early adopt 
 ed by this country, was with the view of promoting its success. 
 The government instantly perceived the importance of an un 
 shackled commerce, and wisely determined not to sacrifice the 
 essential interests ofthe country for any present advantage ; but 
 rather to submit to temporary inconvenience, for the sake of 
 permanent benefits. The reciprocal policy is one of self-denial, 
 but it has great and lasting results in view. It aims at abolishing 
 the monopolizing system ; at emancipating all colonies ; at com 
 pelling each community to bear its own fiscal burdens ; and at 
 the abrogation of those rules of international law, which have 
 grown out of the colonial system of Europe. 
 
 As one ofthe indispensable means of success, and to diminish 
 the sacrifices which are the price of its ascendancy, it inculcates 
 the necessity of internal improvement. Not merely the im 
 provement of the channels of internal intercourse ; though these 
 are of no small importance in enabling different portions of the 
 Union to supply their relative wants : but the developeraent 
 
24 
 
 of our resources, advancement in science and knowledge, the 
 encouragement of manufactures at home, and the naturalization 
 of all those arts and institutions, which distinguish a civilized 
 from a barbarous community. 
 
 The natural state of trade, which consists in a free exchange 
 of commodities, unburdened by imposts and duties, was not 
 applicable to the condition of a country just emerging from 
 colonial dependence. The inhabitants of the American colo 
 nies had not been permitted to apply their industry to such 
 employments as would best repay their labour. By commercial 
 regulations and colonial restrictions, they had been confined to 
 those which tended to increase the navigation, and gave employ 
 ment to the home industry of the mother country. This arti 
 ficial state of things interposed great obstacles to the entrance 
 of an American state into the great mart of nations. She was 
 obliged to contend for her claims to commercial equality, long 
 after her right to political equality had been formally admitted ; 
 and in this latter contest she could only resort to the comparatively 
 inefficient arms of legislative enactment. After the adoption of 
 the federal constitution had placed these weapons in the hands 
 of the general government, they were effectually employed by 
 the revenue acts of the first congress. 
 
 These laws were formed upon the great principles of recipro 
 city, always keeping in view the necessities of the public treasu 
 ry the state of all domestic manufactures, and the ability of the 
 nation to supply itself with articles of prime necessity. These 
 considerations were wisely permitted to modify the reciprocal 
 system, which, if carried out in its full extent, would f have bur 
 dened the staple commodities of each and every country with 
 similar duties, to those imposed by the revenue laws of those 
 nations upon the staple productions of the United States. It 
 was, however, adopted so far as the circumstances of the coun 
 try permitted, and was particularly applied to the navigating 
 interests, upon which the old colonial system had most severely 
 borne. 
 
 Such was the policy which the circumstances of the country 
 forced upon the government of the United States. It was hos- 
 
25 
 
 tile to the system of Europe, and of course it has encountered a 
 constant opposition from that quarter. The European govern 
 ments have opposed it by intrigue, sometimes by force. Fo 
 reign interests always, and sometimes the prejudices of our own 
 countrymen, have interposed obstacles to its success. 
 
 It is not the least, among the evils of a state of dependence, 
 that it renders its subjects unfit for the full enjoyment of the ad 
 vantages proceeding from a change in their condition. Their 
 habitual mode of thinking, influences them after they have sha 
 ken off their bonds. Their movements still indicate, that they 
 were brought up in shackles, and that the iron chains of depen 
 dence have sunk deep into their souls. To this state of feeling 
 may be ascribed the difficulty which exists in eradicating the 
 prejudices, that keep all colonists in a condition of habitual de 
 pendence, after their political connection with the mother country 
 has been dissolved. 
 
 The statesmen of Europe were not ignorant of this prejudice, 
 and they endeavoured to avail themselves of it, in establishing 
 their commercial relations with the new republics. Shortly 
 after the close of the Revolutionary War, the celebrated Brissott 
 wrote a work to persuade the world, that it would be unwise in 
 us to manufacture or produce any thing, that was produced or 
 manufactured in France. The famous work of Lord Sheffield, 
 which produced such a decisive effect upon public opinion in 
 England, and prevented the passage of a law brought forward 
 by Mr. Pitt in 1783, to place our intercourse upon an equal and 
 liberal footing, teaches the same doctrine with regard to British 
 manufactures. It inculcates the principle, that the United 
 States are essentially dependent upon Europe, and that by judi 
 cious commercial regulations, the same monopoly of their carry 
 ing trade, and the same advantages in their commerce, may be 
 obtained as existed before their separation from Great Britain. 
 
 This work was unfortunately made the text-book of the British 
 government, in all its commercial arrangements with this country, 
 and has proved an abundant source of difficulties. It aims to 
 secure to England a monopoly of American commerce, and es 
 pecially of the carrying trade between the two countries. Having 
 
26 
 
 relinquished the power of directly effecting that object, it now 
 seeks the same result by imposing burdens on the shipping of 
 the United States, and by availing itself of the habits and pre 
 judices engendered in a state of colonial dependence. 
 
 These eilbrts to stay the progress of a great people have been 
 unavailing. The policy of the federal government has been 
 directed to correct the evils entailed upon us by the colonial 
 system, and to cure the prejudices which were its legitimate 
 results. It has proved eminently successful. 
 
 The first half century has scarcely closed since our birth as 
 an independent power, and what momentous changes have 
 taken place ! Our own wealthy metropolis even now presents 
 striking marks of the helpless and dependent state of its early 
 inhabitants. Dwelling-houses still exist here, which were built 
 of bricks that the colonists were obliged to import from Hol 
 land. Little more than a century has passed since the date of 
 their erection, and what a contrast ! On the uncultivated island 
 of the Manhadoes stands a city the commercial emporium of 
 a new world, greater in importance than any in the native coun 
 try of its founders. The silent forest has disappeared, and in its 
 stead are crowded streets alive with the bustle of civilized men. 
 A capacious harbour, which then only gave shelter to the canoes 
 of the aborigines, is now filled with shipping, that crowd from 
 every port to pour their tribute into the great mart of American 
 commerce; and a new application of power by American 
 genius has peopled the then lonely, but always magnificent 
 Hudson, with a novel species of navigation, which move over 
 the waters self-impelled and self-directed. 
 
 The parent colony of New-England, that in its infancy was 
 saved from famine by the unexpected arrival of a provision 
 ship, has now expanded into six powerful states, rich in a native 
 population, and abounding in wealth, industry, science, and all 
 the arts of civilization. Other communities, too, on the banks 
 of the Mississippi and on the shores of Erie and of Huron, claim 
 her as their origin, and surpass in power and numbers the most 
 sanguine expectations as to the future growth of that infant 
 colony. The states, that were formed from the old North West 
 
27 
 
 Territory a territory that within the memory of the present 
 generation was the abode of Indian tribes, now own a popu 
 lation nearly equal to that of the whole provinces, when some 
 members of this society were in their infancy ; and all these 
 great and growing republics, refer back to the landing at Ply 
 mouth as the era of their birth, and hail that settlement as their 
 common mother. 
 
 Instead of several distinct communities, thinly scattered 
 through thirteen provinces along the sea-coast, we find a dense 
 and united population pouring into the interior, accompanied by 
 the arts of civilization, and the refinements of social and culti 
 vated communities. Educated and intelligent man is taking 
 the place of the savage, and is fast advancing to the borders of 
 the Pacific ocean, making the wilderness to smile like a garden, 
 and " sowing towns and villages as it were broadcast through 
 the country." 
 
 The shipping which, at the formation of the federal govern 
 ment, was inadequate to the transportation of our own exports, 
 now whitens every sea with its canvass, and bears the varied 
 productions of our soil to every quarter of the globe that is 
 open to American enterprise. The striped bunting, which has 
 within so few years appeared among the symbols of national 
 authority, now floats in every port, and at the same moment 
 excites the jealousy of a power, self-styled the mistress of the 
 sea, and compels the corsairs of the Mediterranean to pay ho 
 mage to the laws of civilized nations. 
 
 The extensive American territories, all access to which, at 
 the era of our Revolution, was debarred by European jealousy, 
 as if they had belonged to another planet, have profitted by the 
 glorious example of this country, and shaken off their colonial 
 fetters. Their emulation has been excited by our success ; 
 their patriotism has been stimulated by our prosperity ; their 
 desire of self-government has been warmed by contemplating 
 the operation of our free institutions. 
 
 The crepuscular light, which first appeared in the north, and 
 now illuminates the whole hemisphere, was the dawning of their 
 own freedom. They have awakened from the slumber of 
 
28 
 
 slavery, assumed their rank in the family of nations, and the 
 American continent, from the St. Lawrence to its southern ex 
 tremity, is declared free as the bounty of Providence created it 
 to the commerce and enterprise of the human race. Commu 
 nities, each occupying territories greater in extent than the 
 whole United States, have successively dissolved their colonial 
 connection with Europe, and, at the moment of declaring their 
 own freedom, have augmented the independence of those who 
 preceded them, and pledged their national existence against 
 the re-establishment of the colonial system. The political insti 
 tutions of nations, whose fathers never heard of the name of 
 civil freedom, are modelled after the popular constitutions of 
 the United States. A community of independent powers, all 
 possessing representative governments, now occupy the western 
 world, and interpose an insuperable obstacle to the pretensions 
 of Europe. The lofty plains of Mexico and Peru ; the fertile 
 banks of the Orinoco and La Plata ; even the awful summits 
 of the Andes, resound with the exhilarating watch-words of 
 liberty and independence! 
 
 The great principle of non-conformity of dissent from re 
 ligious system; abjuration of the political institutions ; and re 
 sistance to the commercial policy of Europe, is at last ascendant. 
 
 Advance, then, ye rising generations ! To you is entrusted 
 the completion of this great experiment. On you, your country 
 relies for the fulfilment of her hopes. To you, she looks for 
 the realization of that glorious promise, which is held out to 
 mankind by her past history, and her present institutions. To 
 you she confides the sacred deposit of the freedom of the world. 
 By the toils and sufferings of your fathers; by the martyrs of 
 the Revolution by the blood poured out like water, by the 
 patriots of humanity in every clime and every age, in the same 
 godlike cause she implores you to be faithful to her trust. 
 She adjures you to persevere in the course which your history 
 has marked out to consider nothing as finished, while anything 
 remains undone, until the American system is triumphant, and 
 you are as completely separated from Europe by character and 
 policy, as by the eternal barrier which heaven has placed be 
 tween us. 
 
From the North American Review, October, 1823. 
 
 The Principles of the Holy Alliance ; or Notes and Manifestoes 
 of the Allied Powers. London, 1823. 
 
 THESE papers are well calculated to excite reflection in the 
 mind of every liberal statesman and national jurist. They af 
 ford the strongest indications, that have yet been given, of a 
 settled determination on the part of the allied monarchs, to 
 preserve by force the ancient system of government from any 
 reformation ; unless proceeding from a quarter where, hitherto, 
 every thing savoring of an innovating spirit has been carefully 
 repressed, arid where all reformers must necessarily meet with 
 their natural and eternal enemies. If the governing principle 
 of these documents be once established that all reformation 
 originating with the people, or caused by their interference, is 
 inconsistent with the welfare and repose of Europe, and, as 
 such, is to be put down by the combined arms of foreign pow 
 ers we may indeed abandon all hope of any melioration in the 
 condition of mankind ; except through the struggles and throes 
 of a convulsion not inferior in horror and bloodshed to the 
 French Revolution. Instead of partial reformation, confined to 
 each particular kingdom, and effected at different periods, the 
 peace of the world will be destroyed by a total and general 
 revolution, in which the aristocratic and liberal parties through 
 out Christendom will be engaged in active hostility. The only 
 effect of any combination, like the Holy Alliance, to put down 
 the spirit of revolution without extirpating its causes, must be 
 to retard the progress of innovation, until the revolutionary ex 
 citement shall have accumulated beyond the power of resistance 
 or control. To expect that this result will be averted, by the 
 voluntary surrender on the part of the privileged orders of their 
 immunities, is to hope for an event contrary to all experience. 
 
30 
 
 It is to suppose a change in human nature to be easier than a 
 political revolution. The natural tendency of all aristocratical 
 and monarchical institutions is to augment the power in the hands 
 of the rulers ; and while the wheels of government move on 
 without interruption, and the splendour of the privileged orders 
 is maintained at the expense of the labouring portion of the 
 community, they are not sensible of the misery of those beneath 
 them. They so seldom come in contact with the inferior 
 classes, that they feel no sympathy in their condition, and 
 before it is displayed by a surrender of any of their privileges, 
 they must be reminded that government was established for 
 something besides the enjoyment of kings and nobles, by com 
 plaints that never proceed but from a desperate people, and 
 are conveyed in a voice, whose very tones speak force and 
 violence. 
 
 To insist, therefore, that all reformation must proceed from 
 the monarchical part of the government, (a proposition which 
 of itself presupposes a consciousness of imperfection rarely if 
 ever felt,) is sufficiently absurd. But when to that is added the 
 monstrous maxim, that all innovation proceeding from the 
 forcible interference of the people with their rulers, is to be 
 crushed by the armies of surrounding nations, they together 
 form a theory of despotism, at once subversive of the laws of 
 nations and the best hopes of mankind. The political regene 
 ration of Europe is placed at a boundless distance, and is only 
 to be expected, when, by the gradual operation of those causes, 
 that have so much enlightened the public mind in the old world 
 within half a century, the oppressed in all civilized kingdoms 
 shall be arrayed in open opposition to their oppressors. At 
 what time this state of things shall take place it would be im 
 prudent to prophesy ; but that this crisis is not far distant may 
 be easily foreseen by all who have examined the present 
 political and social state of Europe with the slighest attention. 
 The general diffusion and increase of wealth, the extension of 
 knowledge to the lower classes, and the great improvement in 
 the condition of men in almost every particular, had, in the 
 infancy of the present generation, rendered the actual situation 
 
31 
 
 of society inconsistent with its existing civil institutions. Deri 
 ving their origin from the warlike barbarians, who established 
 the feudal system, and among whom military science and cour 
 age were the only requisites to high station, and the best lance 
 and the strongest arm were the most indisputable titles to rank 
 and property ; they necessarily became unsuitable to a com 
 mercial community, in which industry, enterprise and economy 
 were regarded as the best qualifications to ensure respect and 
 power. The ignorant warriors who overran Europe during the 
 sixth and seventh centuries, and who laid the foundations of 
 most of its civil institutions, as conquerors of the countries they 
 invaded, according to the prevalent code of war, took absolute 
 possession as in property of the land and its occupants. They 
 sought to transmit their power to their latest descendants, by 
 confining their attention to warlike pursuits, and provided for 
 their support by appropriating to themselves the productions of 
 the soil and the labour of its inhabitants, who were divided 
 among the conquerors as appendages to the land. These claims 
 were at first maintained by the same force with which they 
 were acquired, and after the victors and vanquished were amal 
 gamated into one community, by the juridical powers assumed 
 by the seignoral lords within their respective domains. They 
 were thus interwoven as it were into the constitution of society. 
 This assumption of rank and superiority was not resisted by 
 the dispirited and vanquished cultivators, happy in the preser 
 vation of their lives ; and the subsequent generations growing 
 up under that system, (which was tolerably well adapted to 
 the savage state of the world,) were not tempted to innovate 
 upon it by those provocatives to an inquiring and adventurous 
 spirit which are afforded by modern society. On the contrary, 
 they continued to perform the task assigned to them in the 
 social system, viz., that of labouring for the benefit of their 
 feudal lords, without profit or reward. The hereditary claim 
 of the nobility to these unpurchased and unmerited services, 
 could not long exist in any except a military community. The 
 necessity under which the cultivators then laboured, of seeking 
 protection against the barbarous hordes, which the northern 
 
32 
 
 regions were constantly pouring forth to devastate and plunder 
 the more fertile countries of the south, induced them to ac 
 quiesce in the exorbitant price, that was demanded for the ser 
 vices of their military lords, A respect, too, was felt by the 
 peasantry for a nobility, who displayed in so eminent a degree 
 the attractive qualities of a warlike race, and whose offspring, 
 stimulated by their fathers example and the manners of the 
 times, were early initiated and excelled in those exercises which 
 exalted their ancestors to their high stations. By these means, 
 the notion of hereditary rank was justified, and the privileges 
 of the feudal aristocracy were sustained by popular sentiment, 
 long after the qualities which had earned and preserved those 
 immunities had become less necessary for the rulers of a 
 nation. 
 
 The laws of primogeniture and of entails all tended to the 
 same object, viz., to perpetuate and augment the power of the 
 privileged classes ; and whilst the mass of property consisted 
 of land and its raw productions, their privileges rested upon 
 the sure foundation of enjoyment and ability to maintain it. 
 Their tenants, who belonged to them by law, and obeyed them 
 from habit, formed a large portion of the community, and with 
 the courage and military skill of their lords to direct them, 
 would have easily overpowered those inhabitants who felt dis 
 posed to resist their authority. In a society thus constituted, 
 power must have become concentrated in the hands of a few ; 
 where it would be augmented until it was rendered intolerably 
 burdensome to the rest of the community. Thus, in most of 
 the nations adopting the feudal system, we find the nobility 
 claiming to exercise privileges inconsistent with the very end 
 of society, while the cultivators of the soil, or the serfs, were 
 reduced to a condition but little if any better than that of do 
 mestic cattle. From this state of things the political institutions 
 of Europe derive their origin. Here we see the beginning of 
 the privileged classes, of their independent and conflicting 
 courts of judicature in the same kingdom, and of those feudal 
 institutions in general, which, by the progress of society, have 
 been rendered such insufferable abuses in modern Europe. 
 
The institutions that were well adapted to a time in which 
 agriculture was the chief productive art, and was the chief 
 end of government, were no longer tolerable, when the manu 
 facturing and commercial arts had become the main business 
 of men, and governments devoted their efforts to develope the 
 resources of their respective countries. The great amount of 
 real property, which was monopolized and withdrawn from 
 general use by the nobility and the church, (enriched as it was 
 in the dark period of religion,) was also at variance with the 
 spirit of an age, in which an active circulation of capital was 
 required by the habits of the community. Many efforts have 
 been made to reform these abuses, and to render the political 
 institutions of the old world more conformable to the advanced 
 state of society. The barriers, behind which the hereditary 
 aristocracy had intrenched itself, have been partially destroyed, 
 and individuals, who had obtained wealth by commerce, or in 
 fluence by talent, have been received into its ranks, thus con 
 ferring splendour and strength upon that body, to which they 
 thought it an honour to be admitted. The real property of the 
 country has been rendered the subject of commerce, and a 
 general revolution has become manifest in the jurisprudence 
 of Christendom. But still most of the obnoxious institutions 
 remain. The mass of real property on the continent is placed 
 beyond the reach of commerce, by the great wealth of the 
 privileged orders, and by the independence of the two great 
 landholders, the crown and the church. The nobility still ex 
 ercise privileges inconsistent with just and equal laws, even 
 when the qualities which elevated them to rank are no longer 
 peculiar to that class, and other requisites are demanded for 
 public men in which they are still more deficient. In many 
 countries independent and seignorial judiciaries are tolerated ; 
 a system of partial and unequal taxation is prevalent, and the 
 whole face of society presents the revolting spectacle of the 
 civil institutions in open or secret hostility with the habits and 
 wants of its members. The great spring that has been given 
 to the public mind by the American Revolution, and to produc 
 tive industry by the vast improvements in machinery within 
 
34 
 
 half a century, has contributed to place these in still stronger 
 opposition. The undefined and general feeling of dissatisfac 
 tion, that slumbered without any specific object, has grown by 
 the operation of these causes, and by the opposition of the 
 advocates of the ancient order of things, into a settled and 
 active hatred against all the institutions originating in the feudal 
 system ; until we find the absolute governments in alliance for 
 the purpose of forcibly supporting the establishments that the 
 friends of liberal principles have determined to abolish. 
 
 The principles promulgated in the manifestoes of the allied 
 monarchs will draw the line of demarcation between these 
 parties more distinctly. If their conduct, since the downfall 
 of Bonaparte, had not already convinced, these documents 
 must convince every person who values political freedom, that 
 there is no safety for the advocates of liberal doctrines in any 
 corner of Europe, while the league between the continental 
 despots subsists unbroken. This conviction will produce a 
 sympathy and correspondence between the friends of liberty 
 in every country, that must swallow up all local and even na 
 tional attachments, and lead them to unite against the Holy 
 Alliance, and may probably bring on the final contest sooner 
 than it would otherwise take place. The war against Spain, 
 and the state papers justifying it, proceed upon the simple 
 axioms, that the monarchical branch of the government is the 
 only part that is to be regarded as sacred, that it is beyond the 
 reach of reform, and that all political innovation can rightfully 
 proceed only from the free will and voluntary grant of the 
 sovereign. From these undeniable maxims, as they call them, 
 they draw the corollary, that any violation of them may be 
 punished by the military interference of the adjoining king 
 doms, supported by the whole force of the alliance. All pre 
 tences of danger to their own quiet from the intrigues of the 
 new rulers are laid aside as unnecessary to disguise their 
 designs, and the plain principle of interference with the political 
 constitution of the country in which the reform has been 
 adopted, on the ground of an innovation against the royal will, 
 is unequivocally advanced. In this enlightened age, is this 
 
35 
 
 monstrous proposition, which heretofore has been scarcely 
 heard of but in the adulatory address of some wretched court 
 parasite, for the first time inserted in the public manifestoes of 
 civilized monarchs, and sought to be engrafted upon the national 
 law of Europe. The allied powers are united to support it, 
 and it must of necessity reduce the liberals in all kingdoms to 
 make common cause against them. The war is waged not 
 against revolutionary Spain alone, but against the free princi 
 ples of government in that, and through that in all countries. 
 The alliance aims at the destruction of the British as well as of 
 the Spanish constitution, and considers them both as equal 
 nuisances, and to be abated in the same manner, as soon as cir 
 cumstances will warrant the attempt. That we may not be 
 accused of precipitancy in assenting to this conclusion, we will 
 proceed to lay before our readers the circumstances under 
 which the Holy Alliance was formed, and to examine the princi 
 ples promulgated in its official documents, and the acts autho 
 rized by the parties to that league. 
 
 The first twelve years of this century may be regarded as 
 an era in the political history of the world. The ancient go 
 vernments of Europe had found the principles of the French 
 Revolution too powerful for their means of resistance. Aided 
 and developed by the extraordinary genius and energies of 
 Bonaparte, they had overspread Christendom, shaking the foun 
 dation of thrones, paralyzing the strength of the privileged 
 orders, and literally " with fear of change perplexing monarchs." 
 The feudal system was overthrown in France, and by its down 
 fall in that kingdom a fatal blow was given to all institutions of 
 the same family in other countries. The invasion of Spain, 
 though unjust and indefensible, was not without some good 
 effects. The inquisition was abolished, together with the com 
 mercial monopolies, the unequal and oppressive imposts, and 
 the independent and seignorial courts of judicature. Like a 
 fire that had passed over the country, though it had destroyed 
 vegetation, it had given activity to the soil, and purified the 
 atmosphere. The Spanish colonies were affected by the same 
 event, and the destruction of the government in the mother 
 
36 
 
 country also severed the unnatural chain which bound them to 
 Europe. The commercial supremacy of Great Britain trembled 
 on the verge of ruin, and it seemed as if a new and sounder 
 state of things was about to grow out of the convulsions of 
 France and the injustice and violence of the master of Chris 
 tendom. This happy consummation could not indeed be ex 
 pected, while, in full possession of the resources of his empire 
 and of absolute power, Napoleon went on in his career of usur 
 pation and aggression upon the surrounding kingdoms. When, 
 however, he had met with so severe a check in Russia, and 
 subsequently, by the rising of the German people, had been 
 compelled to retire beyond the Rhine even to his capital, the 
 allied monarchs might have dictated a peace, that should have 
 put it out of his power again to disturb the quiet of his neigh 
 bours, while the rights of the French nation were respected. 
 By this course they might have secured the lasting tranquillity 
 of the civilized world. The people of France would have been 
 unwilling to enter the lists with combined Europe a second 
 time, and Napoleon would have been obliged to listen to their 
 entreaties for an interval of repose. The privileged orders and 
 crowned heads would have felt the necessity of respecting 
 public opinion, while the people would have been contented 
 with the great improvement in their political condition ; and the 
 benefits resulting from the partial destruction of the feudal 
 system, would have remained to compensate mankind for the 
 temporary miseries of the French Revolution. 
 
 But the heads of the coalition seemed incapable of profiting 
 by the great moral and political lessons that had been presented 
 by the events of the preceding twenty years ; or they had 
 acquired knowledge only to misuse it. The demands of the 
 allies were augmented in proportion to the diminution of the 
 power of Bonaparte, until they lost their moderation in the in 
 toxication of success, and undertook to impose a family upon 
 France, which was the abhorrence of the majority of the peo 
 ple, as associated with the burdens that they had shaken off at 
 such an expense of lives and property. From affirming that 
 Xhey had no intention or desire to interfere with the internal 
 
37 
 
 concerns of France, they proceeded to declare, when at Frank 
 fort on the Rhine, in December, 1813, that "they would not lay 
 down their arms until the political state of Europe should be 
 re-established anew, until immovable principles should have 
 resumed their rights over vain pretensions." In this document 
 was first displayed a spirit totally different from that in which 
 they had until then prosecuted the war. The independence of 
 Europe, the unjust violence and grasping ambition of France, 
 were not spoken of; but a new proposition was advanced, 
 which could not be comprehended, until explained by subse 
 quent events. On the first of March, 1814, having advanced 
 into France with every prospect of ultimate success, the allied 
 powers entered into a treaty at Chaumont, in which they bound 
 themselves " never to lay down their arms until the object of the 
 war, as they have agreed upon it among themselves, should be 
 fully obtained." In the fifth article of the treaty they spoke of 
 consulting, in the moment when peace with France should be 
 concluded, upon the means necessary to preserve the peace of 
 Europe. This treaty, which may be regarded as the basis of 
 the present public law, or legitimate doctrines of Europe, was 
 to endure twenty years. For what purpose it was formed, and 
 for what objects additional concert was premeditated, can be 
 understood only by attending to the subsequent acts of the high 
 powers. The object that was obscurely hinted at in the Frank 
 fort manifesto, they deem themselves strong enough to acknow 
 ledge when at Paris ; and they there declared, that they would 
 not treat with Napoleon, nor with any of his family, and " that 
 they respected the integrity of France, such as it existed under 
 her legitimate kings." 
 
 This declaration plainly evinced their resolution to deprive 
 the French people of their right to establish their own govern 
 ment, so far as to render the abdication of Bonaparte essential 
 to the peace of his empire. This resolution was plausibly de 
 fended on the ground that the inordinate ambition, great genius 
 and unexampled energies of that man, had rendered his pos 
 session of power incompatible with the repose of Europe. 
 Still they cautiously avoided any thing resembling dictation to 
 
 
38 
 
 the French nation of the dynasty to which it must submit. 
 The public mind was not yet prepared for the developement of 
 their ultimate designs, and a too open declaration of their prin 
 ciples might have caused a reaction that would have been dan 
 gerous in the extreme. The battalions of Bonaparte, though 
 weakened, were not dispersed ; the national guards still held 
 their arms, and, in the midst of a brave and armed people, the 
 bare proposal of forcing a constitution and monarch upon them 
 might have roused a spirit that would have proved fatal to the 
 projects of the holy league and restored the fallen fortunes of 
 Napoleon. Caution was therefore necessary, and duplicity, in 
 conformity to their usual policy, was resorted to. Upon enter 
 ing Paris, the allied monarchs promised, in the face of the 
 world, "that they would recognise and guaranty the constitu 
 tion, which the French nation should give itself," and they in 
 vited " the senate to appoint a provisional government capable 
 of providing for the want of administration, and of preparing 
 such a constitution as might be adapted to the French people." 
 This guarantee was signed by the emperor of Russia on the 
 31st of March, 1814, and declared by him to express the inten 
 tions of all the allied powers. As it was never disavowed, 
 we may safely conclude that they were parties to and sanc 
 tioned this guarantee. 
 
 In this manifesto was contained a full and express acknow 
 ledgment of the right of the people to alter their political consti 
 tution, a right which they had assumed and vindicated in the 
 midst of unparalleled violence and tumult. They now deny 
 the truth of this principle, but this does not destroy the force of 
 their acknowledgment ; neither is it invalidated by their subse 
 quent refusal to comply with their guarantee. This may show 
 perfidy and duplicity on the part of the allied monarchs, and that 
 for temporary purposes they could stoop to promise to the people, 
 what they never meant to perform ; but the fact, that their guar 
 antee was offered and accepted, demonstrates their acquiescence 
 in that great principle, which they now seek to subvert by policy 
 and arms, viz. the right of the people to change their government. 
 In compliance with this request, a provisional government \vas 
 
39 
 
 established by the senate, and on the Oth of April, 1814, it pre 
 sented the constitution, which it had formed, to the nation. In 
 that instrument, the right of the people to alter their form of go 
 vernment is expressly asserted. It further stated, that the 
 French people call freely, to the throne of France, Louis San- 
 islaus Xavier de France, brother of the last king, and after him, 
 the other members of the house of Bourbon, in the ancient order/ 
 In the 29th article, provision is made for submitting the consti 
 tution to the people for their acceptance, and Louis was to be 
 proclaimed king as soon as he had signed and sworn to the con 
 stitution. He consequently was not to be proclaimed king, 
 before he had performed that condition ; and the allied powers, 
 in the character of guarantees, were bound to see that he faith 
 fully performed it. Louis the XVIII, who, while these prepa 
 rations for his restoration were going on, had remained in 
 England, began his journey to Paris, then occupied by the allied 
 armies, neither assenting to, nor rejecting the constitution, but 
 preserving a profound, and, as we think, a deceitful silence, with 
 regard to the form of government which should be established 
 in France. His brother, indeed, who was in Paris, and acting 
 as his representative, encouraged the belief of his approval of 
 the constitution; but Louis made no public declaration of his 
 opinion on that subject, until he imagined himself firmly estab 
 lished on the throne of his ancestors. As soon, however, as 
 Napoleon had left France, viz. on the 2d of May, 1814, at St. 
 Ouen, Louis issued a proclamation, approving the basis of the 
 constitution, but condemning certain articles, which, in their 
 present form, he declared could not be considered fundamental 
 laws of the state. As he could not accept a constitution neces 
 sarily requiring revision, he convoked the senate and legislative 
 body to meet on the 31st of May, to examine one, which would 
 then be placed before them. By this declaration, he denied the 
 right of the French nation to frame a constitution for the govern 
 ment of the kingdom ; and he violated the guarantee of that right 
 by the allied powers. It then became their duty to enforce it. 
 Their pledge (the most solemn that could be given by monarchs 
 to a people in arms) was forfeited by supporting Louis upoa 
 
40 
 
 any other condition, than that of his absolute acceptance of the 
 constitution framed by the senate. They had invited tiie nation 
 to recall him upon that condition, and had promised to guaranty 
 its performance. The objection of Louis, to the/or;?* of certain 
 articles, and his promise to present an unexceptionable consti 
 tution to the nation, even if sincerely given, were not equivalent 
 to the unconditional acceptance that was promised. But the 
 objection of the king w T as to the substance, and not to the form, 
 and the promise (if given for any purpose except to obtain time) 
 was never executed in its proper sense. The constitution of 
 the senate asserted the principles of freedom ; the instrument, 
 framed by Louis, was founded upon the doctrine that the breath 
 of worldly men cannot depose the deputy elected by the Lord/ 
 In the preamble, he claimed the throne, not as it was offered to 
 him, as successor to Louis XVI. called freely by the French 
 people, but as successor by indefeasible right to his nephew, 
 Louis XVII. He degraded the constitution into a charter, pre 
 facing his grant with an assertion, that, in France, all authority 
 resided in the person of the king. After proving by history, 
 the degraded condition of the French people in former times, 
 and declaring that they owed their present immunities to the 
 generosity of their sovereigns; and deducing from these premises 
 the necessity of preserving the royal power and prerogative, he 
 concluded with * granting, conceding, and releasing, (in the form 
 of a deed at common law,) * to his subjects, the privileges con 
 tained in the constitutional charter/ It is unnecessary to point 
 out the differences between the charter and the constitution of 
 the 6th of April. The two instruments rest upon different prin 
 ciples, and all comparison would be useless. One provision, 
 however, may be quoted, as a specimen of the whole. By the 
 constitution, either legislative body was enabled to propose laws, 
 excepting for contributions : by the charter, all laws originated 
 with the king. 
 
 What excuse, but that of increased power, can be urged for 
 this breach of faith on the part of the allied monarchs ? It cer 
 tainly cannot be pleaded in justification of their inattention to 
 the conduct of Louis, that it was a matter concerning the inter- 
 
41 
 
 nal government of France, with which they had no right to in 
 terfere, and that when once on the throne, his subjects and he 
 should have decided their differences without a foreign arbiter. 
 Of this subterfuge they have deprived themselves, by their inter 
 position after the return of Napoleon from Elba. Their right 
 to interfere was claimed under the capitulation of Paris. The 
 committee of the Congress of Vienna, in their report of May 15, 
 1815, put it solely upon that ground. They considered the 
 French nation as a party to that capitulation, and that their 
 conduct, in recalling Bonaparte, was a violation of that treaty. 
 If that treaty was binding upon the French people after the return 
 of the Bourbons, it was binding upon the allies, and their solemn 
 guarantee of their right to form their own government subsisted 
 in its full force, unaltered by the restoration ofthe ancient dynasty. 
 Interference in behalf of the people was as justifiable as inter 
 ference in behalf of the monarch ; and that they did not comply 
 with their guarantee, while they did compel the French nation 
 to perform its part of the capitulation, only proved their total 
 indifference to promises or principles, except as they conduced 
 to the establishment of a despotic system of government. It 
 was not a little remarkable, that whilst the allied powers were 
 declaring their intention of not interfering in the domestic affairs 
 of France, they considered the French people as distinct from 
 their government, so much so, that the former was regarded 
 as a party to, and bound by a treaty to which the latter never 
 assented, and a war was waged against the nation for its infrac 
 tion of that treaty, while the invaders were in alliance with the 
 government. This inconsistency displayed in a striking man 
 ner their unprecedented violation of public law, and how hard it 
 was for them to reconcile their conduct with any known and 
 acknowledged principle. It is however partially explained by 
 a little circumstance, to be remembered not only as affording 
 the key to this mystery, but also as indicating a division between 
 the allies, and the disposition of the British government to return 
 to a wise and more liberal policy. When Napoleon, by his return 
 from Elba, had deranged the views ofthe coalition for the paci 
 fication of Europe, the powers assembled at Vienna declared 
 
42 
 
 him an outlaw, and announced their determination to maintain 
 the treaty of Paris, and to guard against every attempt to re- 
 plunge the world into the disorders of revolution. Twelve days 
 subsequent to this declaration, viz. 25th of March, 1815, the 
 ministers of Great Britain and the monarchs of Austria, Russia, 
 and Prussia, entered into a new treaty, "to apply to the invasion 
 of France the principles of the treaty of Chaumont, to preserve 
 the order of things so happily established in Europe, to maintain 
 the treaty of Paris, and the stipulations determined and signed 
 at the Congress at Vienna." They consequently agreed not to 
 lay down their arms, until Napoleon should have been rendered 
 absolutely incapable to create disturbances, and to renew his 
 attempts for possessing himself of the supreme power in France. 
 In the last article, his Most Christian Majesty was invited to 
 accede to the treaty, and to make known what assistance cir 
 cumstances would permit him to give in furtherance of its objects. 
 Whether it was that the British Court was apprehensive, from 
 the unanimity arid exulting gladness with which Napoleon was 
 received by the French nation, that the war would be intermina 
 ble ; or that the house of Brunswick at last saw that it \vas about 
 condemning the title by which it held the British crown, we 
 are unable to decide. It however took a distinction, which 
 would have enabled it either to conclude peace without incon 
 sistency, or to defend its title to the throne of Great Britain 
 without being embarrassed by its own acts. In exchanging the 
 ratifications, the British minister declared that "the article invi 
 ting his Most Christian Majesty to accede to the treaty," was 
 not to be considered as binding his Britannic Majesty to prose 
 cute the war with a view of imposing upon France any particular 
 government. "However solicitous," the declaration went on to 
 say, * he might be to see his Most Christian Majesty restored, 
 and to contribute with his allies to so auspicious an event, he 
 deems himself called upon to make this declaration, in conside 
 ration of what is due to his Most Christian Majesty s interest in 
 France, and in conformity to the principles from which the 
 British Court has invariably acted." To this explanation, the 
 Austrian ambassador assented, as expressing the sentiments of 
 
43 
 
 his master, probably thinking a slight contradiction between pro 
 fessions and actions to be preferred to a difference with Great 
 Britain, the purse-bearer of the alliance. While the represen 
 tatives of the allied powers were acting this farce at Vienna, 
 the Duke of Wellington, the commander of their armies, was 
 marching upon the French frontiers, and in a simultaneous proc 
 lamation to the French people, manifested the hollowness and 
 hypocrisy of their professions. In that manifesto he declared, and 
 the expressions are worthy of remark, * that henceforth Europe, 
 united and moved by the same interest, must form but one power, 
 and the sovereigns a supreme corporation, upon which will be 
 raised the solid pedestal of the peace and happiness of nations. 
 The rights of the monarchy will attain all from this august senate 
 and be confirmed in its solemn acts. The name of Louis XVIII. 
 is inscribed in this federal compact. The allied sovereigns 
 placed him on the throne of his ancestors, and proclaimed the 
 reign of the Bourbon family, until its extinction, over the French 
 people. They now take up arms to restore and confirm that 
 dynasty, to support the cause of kings, to consolidate the govern 
 ment, to secure the repose of mankind, and to give an imposing 
 example of sovereign authority to all mankind." The same sen 
 timents were reiterated in the proclamations, dated March 18th, 
 and April 8th, 1815, signed by all the powers at Vienna. In 
 these public papers, the mask of respect assumed by them, for 
 the independence of France, is thrown off. They avow that 
 the violation of the capitulation of Paris was their own act, and 
 not that of the adherents of the Bourbons, and they declare their 
 determination, again to disregard their guarantee, while they 
 insist on the compliance of the French nation with its part of 
 the treaty. 
 
 The battle of Waterloo decided the contest in their favour. 
 The Bourbons were again restored, and with more marks of 
 violence and conquest than before. The allies avoided giving 
 any pledge to observe the rights of the nation, and the legisla 
 ture adjourned, after protesting that they yielded to superior 
 force, and that the independence of the country was violated. 
 As if there were not sufficient marks of their utter disregard of 
 
44 
 
 their pledged faith, and of the explanation given at the exchange 
 of the ratifications of the treaty of March 25th, 1815, the allies 
 entered into a new treaty at Paris, November 20th, 1815, in 
 which they agreed " for the purpose of maintaining inviolate 
 the royal authority" to station 150,000 troops on the frontiers, 
 and within the fortresses of France, for the space of five years, 
 unless "the allied sovereigns, at the end of three years, should, 
 in concert with his Most Christian Majesty, agree to acknow 
 ledge, that the motives which led to that measure had ceased to 
 exist." In this military occupation of France the revolution 
 ended. The popular party was overcome by an overwhelming 
 force, and Louis le Desire was placed upon the throne of his 
 ancestors, and there maintained, by the armed legions of the 
 alliance. To this moment, however, a pretence of public good 
 w r as held out as the motive to their conduct. Whatever may 
 have been their real intention, as to the conclusion to be drawn 
 from the restoration of hereditary monarchy in France, the act 
 is glossed over with fair professions of zeal for the welfare of 
 mankind, and of the necessity of suppressing principles dan 
 gerous to the existence of social order, and afterwards of the 
 necessity of disarming an individual, whose ambition and genius 
 rendered his possession of power fatal to the repose of Europe. 
 These principles, though perhaps their applicability depended 
 upon the unnatural and unsound structure of society in the old 
 world, still were not easily controverted by statesmen living in 
 that society, and defending the permanency of the ancient 
 establishments. Although the abuses of the feudal system, and 
 the disproportionate privileges of the nobility in the continental 
 monarchies, afforded materials for the contagion of revolution 
 ary principles ; or even for the military conquests of Bonaparte, 
 directed by his genius, and maintained by a system better 
 adapted to the wants and nature of modern society ; still to 
 these courts struggling for existence itself, the revolutionary ex 
 citement in France, or the continuance of Napoleon at the head 
 of his empire, seemed more than a pretence for their interfe 
 rence in the domestic affairs of that kingdom. The extent and 
 immediateness of the danger prevented men from putting to 
 
45 
 
 the test the correctness of the principles which governed their 
 conduct. But when Napoleon was imprisoned in St. Helena, 
 and Louis was securely seated on the throne of his ancestors ; 
 and particularly when, in 1818, the allied powers, at Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, declared " they recognised with satisfaction the order 
 of things happily established in France by the restoration," this 
 pretence no longer existed, and the general rule, that any inter 
 ference with the internal government of a country is an attack 
 upon its independence and a violation of the laws of nations, 
 assumed its original force. The grounds upon which the ex 
 ceptions had been justified were annihilated, and the ordinary 
 maxims of national jurisprudence were restored to their usual 
 active operation. Such, however, was not the intention of the 
 members of the Holy Alliance. They had seen the extension of 
 liberal principles; they had witnessed the progress of intelli 
 gence in modern Europe, and they feared its operation upon 
 their subjects. They knew that an augmented activity in the 
 public mind would cause the overthrow of the political institu 
 tions of their own kingdoms, as it had done those of France, 
 and in their several assemblages they adopted and matured mea 
 sures to arrest the march of political innovation. It is impos 
 sible to doubt this, when we look at the simultaneous acts of the 
 allied monarchs to promote that object, and advert to the fact 
 that these were adopted shortly after a general congress had 
 been held. Upon the return of his Prussian Majesty from Paris, 
 namely, on the 3d of January, 1816, a decree was published, 
 suppressing certain political journals and restricting the liberty 
 of the press. The sacred alliance was acceded to by the king 
 of the Netherlands, June 21st, 1816, and in the month of Sep 
 tember following, a law was proposed by the king to the legis 
 lature, and approved by that body, prohibiting any discussion 
 upon the nature or character of any foreign government. In 
 France, the press was already under the inspection of the police, 
 but in 1817 a law was passed imposing upon it further restric 
 tions, and on the 30th of December, in that year, all political 
 journals were suppressed by law until the end of the legislative 
 session in 1818. These measures not only evihce the hostility 
 
46 
 
 of the members of the alliance to a free press, that great engine 
 of political reformation, but a settled and concerted plan to sup 
 press all attempts at innovation by their joint efforts. They 
 had experienced the advantages of acting in concert against 
 their disaffected subjects, and at Aix-la-Chapelle an agreement 
 was formed, to which France acceded upon the invitation of 
 the original parties. By this agreement, Austria, Great Britain, 
 France, Russia, and Prussia, " after having investigated the 
 conservative principle of the great interests, which constitute the 
 order of things established in Europe by the treaty of Paris, of 
 May 30th, 1814, the recess of Vienna, and the treaty of peace 
 of 1815," declared, 1st, that they would preserve the principles 
 of intimate union, which had hitherto decided with respect to 
 all their common interests and relations, &c. 2d. That their 
 union should have for its object only the maintenance of gene 
 ral peace in conformity with those treaties. 3d. That France, 
 associated with the other powers by the restoration of legiti 
 mate monarchy, engaged to concur in the maintenance and 
 consolidation of a system which has given peace to Europe and 
 assured its duration. 4th. For the purpose of attaining that 
 object, future meetings of the allied powers were provided for, 
 to which the contracting powers were to be invited ; but if the 
 affairs of any other state were to be brought before the meeting, 
 that power should be invited to attend and participate in the 
 debates relating thereto. 
 
 This combination of raonarchs at this time began to assume 
 the form it was originally intended to take, but which circum 
 stances had until then rendered unnecessary. It was to be con 
 tinued upon a new principle. Not as before, to suppress any 
 particular danger, or to oppose any particular government, but 
 to guard against indefinite dangers which might exist, to act 
 as a sort of precautionary, supervising police. 
 
 We might here condemn this measure as creating an unpre 
 cedented tribunal, without any apparent or real necessity ; 
 inasmuch as the allied powers did not intimate that any existed, 
 or that any new revolutions were to be apprehended. But this 
 would be shutting our eyes to the evidence before us. Revo- 
 
47 
 
 lutions were to be expected ; but the allied monarchs could not 
 allude to their apprehensions, without exposing the causes of 
 the universal desire of change. If they had said that the alli 
 ance was formed against the revolutionary spirit of their own 
 subjects, the inquiry would have presented itself, " What is the 
 cause of this spirit ?" and the public mind would have reverted 
 to the arbitrary laws and despotic systems of government in 
 their several kingdoms ; the promises of those monarchs to 
 reform their political constitutions, and the violation of those 
 promises, when the danger which had extorted them had passed 
 away. They therefore resorted to a new combination, under 
 the pretence of subserving the interests of religion and morality ; 
 but, in reality, to guard against the reformation of their govern 
 ments, and, if possible, by united and simultaneous efforts to 
 stay the progress of improvement. To further this great object, 
 shortly after the dissolution of the congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 laws were adopted in several of the continental kingdoms, hav 
 ing in view a still greater restriction upon the liberty of the 
 press. On the 14th of October, 1819, a decree was issued, 
 establishing a literary censorship for the kingdom of Hanover. 
 On the 18th of the same month, his Prussian Majesty promul 
 gated a decree to the same effect, and at the same time the 
 German Confederation passed a law, by which all periodical 
 publications were subjected to a previous censorship. Other 
 restrictions upon the press were imposed, the universities within 
 the confederation were put under supervision, and professors 
 who did not teach political doctrines suitable to the views of 
 the aristocratic party, were to be dismissed from employment. 
 The Prussian Court adopted the same principles in a circular to 
 the foreign agents of that kingdom, and the object of this super 
 vision was in that paper said to be, " to prevent young men 
 from preparing for a life at once learned and active, from be 
 coming what they ought not to be." This was, in other words, 
 expressing the fear of that party of the operation of intelligence 
 upon the minds of those, who, by their activity, obtain influence 
 in society. To co-operate with those decrees, a central com 
 mittee was appointed to meet at Mentz, to inquire into all revo- 
 
48 
 
 lutionary movements or associations. The same year the 
 French government adopted some new regulations respecting 
 the press, which, in 1820, were so modified, that the editors of 
 the liberal journals retired from the exercise of their duties, 
 declaring that under those laws their labours could be of no 
 service to the public. In Poland, notwithstanding the consti 
 tution guarantied the liberty of the press ; every publication, 
 whether periodical or not, was subjected to the inspection of a 
 royal censor, by an ordinance of the Russian Emperor, of July 
 16th, 1819. These simultaneous acts, all tending to the same 
 object, prove them to have been the result of a well digested 
 and unanimous resolution. They show the efforts of the allied 
 monarchs to have been directed to the achievement of one 
 great end, namely, to extinguish the desire of innovation, per 
 petuate the old system of arbitrary government, inthrall the 
 human intellect, and chain its freeborn spirit to the footstool of 
 legitimate monarchy. But while their attention was occupied 
 in those kingdoms wherein they suspected revolutionary prin 
 ciples to be most prevalent, the reaction upon their system 
 commenced in the south of Europe, and they found new diffi 
 culties springing up at the very moment when they had sup 
 posed their end to have been accomplished. In the beginning 
 of 1820, the troops that were assembled at Cadiz for the 
 invasion of South America, being badly fed and clothed, and 
 worse paid, revolted, and declared that they would not embark, 
 and also that their arrearages should be paid. The people im 
 mediately took advantage of this disaffection among the mili 
 tary, and simultaneously throughout Spain proclaimed the 
 constitution of 1812, which, on the 6th of March next following, 
 the king, being without support, found himself obliged to accept. 
 How this constitution was formed, and how it was overturned 
 upon the return of Ferdinand from France, will be mentioned 
 in another part of these remaks. At present we must confine 
 ourselves to the relation of events. On the 1st of July the 
 Neapolitan army followed the example of the Spanish troops, 
 and proclaimed the Spanish Constitution of 1812 ; Naples 
 having been formerly united to the same kingdom. On the 6th 
 
40 
 
 of July, Ferdinand, the old king of Naples, abdicated, and his 
 son Francis, who succeeded him, assented to the constitution, 
 saving what modifications a national representation, constitu 
 tionally convoked, might propose. On the 20th of August a 
 similar revolution took place in Portugal. A constitution was 
 to be formed by the cortez, and the king was proclaimed as 
 the constitutional monarch. These events soon attracted the 
 attention of the self-constituted guardians of Europe. But 
 instead of concluding from this general dissatisfaction evinced 
 towards existing governments, that there was something faulty 
 in their constitutions, or that they were unsuitable to modern 
 societies, they determined to afford them their most efficient 
 support. A forcible opposition was therefore organized to these 
 reformed governments, not because they threatened the politi 
 cal existence of the neighbouring kingdoms, or by their excesses 
 disgraced the cause of freedom, but because the established 
 order of things was invaded ; or, as it was declared in the Lay- 
 bach circular, subsequent to the Neapolitan war, " because 
 every change, which does not solely emanate from the free 
 will the reflecting and enlightened impulse of those, whom 
 God has rendered responsible for power, leads to disorders 
 more insupportable than those which it pretends to cure." The 
 Emperor of Austria, being special guardian of Italy, according 
 to the new system, took measures to summon the allied mon- 
 archs to a congress, and in the month of October, 1820, they 
 met at Troppau. On the 28th of December they issued a 
 circular, in which they declared that "the principles which 
 united the great powers of the continent to deliver the world 
 from the military despotism of an individual issuing from the 
 revolution, ought to act against the revolutionary power which 
 has just developed itself. Without doubt," it continued, "the 
 powers have the right to take, in common, general measures of 
 precaution against those states, whose reforms engendered by 
 rebellion are opposed to legitimate government. In conse 
 quence, the monarchs assembled at Troppau have arranged 
 together the measures required by circumstances, and have 
 communicated to the British and French courts their intention 
 
 G 
 
50 
 
 of attaining the end desired by mediation or force." Lord 
 Castlereagh (and certainly he was not a statesman to be shocked 
 at any slight infringement of popular doctrines) was unable to 
 assent to the principle asserted in this circular. On the 19th 
 of January, 1821, the British Court issued its protest against 
 any such interpretation being put upon the general treaties, to 
 which the allies had referred as sanctioning that principle. This 
 protest contained the following sentence, which not only more 
 strongly marked the difference first manifested at the ratifica 
 tion of the treaty of Vienna, but pointed out the cause of that 
 difference. " The British Court regard all interference with 
 the internal concerns of a foreign government, as an exception 
 to principles of great value and importance, and never to be so 
 far reduced to rule as to be incorporated in the law of nations." 
 This single sentence showed a radical difference between the 
 policy of the Court of St. James and that of tire Holy Alliance. 
 While, however, it refused to join in the crusade against Naples, 
 it fully admitted that Austria and her associates might engage 
 in it with a view to their own security. The protest, though 
 asserting an established principle with manly force, closed with 
 certain professions as to the pure intentions of the allies and of 
 their right to interfere, provided the internal commotions of 
 Naples threatened the tranquillity of their dominions, which 
 could not be regarded otherwise, than as an implied approba 
 tion of their conduct towards Italy. The Austrian troops were 
 consequently put in motion, and in one short campaign annihi 
 lated the popular party in Italy. As if, however, fate had 
 determined that the deceitful professions of the combined des 
 pots for the independence of other powers should be exposed, 
 and their true designs fully developed, it so happened that in 
 the midst of the Neapolitan war, a revolution broke out in 
 Piedmont, against which the Austrian forces were immediately 
 directed, as if they had been the ordinary police of Italy, and 
 this a common breach of the peace. No consultation was had 
 with regard to this revolution ; no invitation was given to the 
 government of that kingdom, in conformity with the fourth 
 article of the Protocol of Aix-la-ChapelJe ; nor was there any 
 delay to ascertain if the domestic disturbances were likely to 
 
51 
 
 extend to other countries ; but the Piedmontese territories were 
 immediately invaded and the new government overthrown, by 
 the unsolicited interference of the foreign allies of its sovereign. 
 With the suppression of the revolutionary spirit in Italy, they 
 appeared to be then satisfied ; but in the Laybach circular, in 
 which they justified their conduct, and appointed a time for 
 another congress to assemble, the same alarming principles of 
 interference with the internal concerns of other countries, are 
 reiterated and maintained as incorporated in the public law of 
 Europe, and the allies declare that " they will regard as null 
 and contrary to the law of nations, all pretended reform effected 
 by revolt and open force." Though this declaration might 
 well be considered as a direct attack upon the Spanish and 
 Portuguese revolutions, and indicative of more energetic mea 
 sures to be pursued at some subsequent period, still, as no im 
 mediate steps were publicly taken by the high powers to carry 
 their resolutions into effect, it was generally supposed that Spain 
 and Portugal would be protected from such unauthorized inter 
 ference, if not by the law of nations, at least by the dread of 
 their power. The great monarchies of Europe were not to be 
 treated in the same unceremonious manner as the petty states 
 of Italy. In the case of Spain, too, there were some peculiar 
 circumstances, which strengthened her claim to exemption from 
 the special superintendence of the allies. By their peculiar 
 religious and national prejudices, and by their almost insular 
 situation, the Spanish people had been in a great degree sepa 
 rated from a considerable part of the European family. Their 
 spirit of national independence had often rendered them invin 
 cible, and history afforded the Holy Alliance some striking les 
 sons on the danger of invading a gallant and haughty people, 
 in a mountainous country. For three hundred years that nation 
 resisted the gigantic power of Rome. The Saracen hordes, 
 that overran the country, could not subdue it. Though outnum 
 bered, the Spaniards resisted, and after the lapse of centuries 
 drove the Moors back to their own country, and the 
 
 " Castilian mould, 
 Incapable of stain, at last expelled 
 Her mischief, and purged off the baser fire 
 Victorious." 
 
52 
 
 It was in the Peninsula, too, that the first effectual resistance 
 had been made to the power of Napoleon. The rest of Europe 
 had submitted after a long struggle to his authority, and acqui 
 esced in his continental system. The old king of Spain acted 
 but as his deputy. By his orders the best portion of the Spanish 
 army had been transported to the Danish islands in the Baltic, 
 and the French troops had been admitted into and occupied 
 some of the most important cities of the kingdom. Charles IV., 
 (whose abdication, it should be recollected, though caused by a 
 revolt of his subjects, was sanctioned by the Congress of Vienna,) 
 and Ferdinand, his son, who was in possession of the crown, 
 had agreed to submit their disputes to the decision of the French 
 Emperor, and had placed their persons and their courts in his 
 power. While in France, Ferdinand \vas induced to abdicate, 
 possibly by motives similar to those of his father, and after his 
 abdication he sanctioned the transfer by Charles of the Spanish 
 crown to Bonaparte. Here then was a full and entire release 
 of his subjects from their allegiance. If papers, and charters, 
 and releases, are to be substituted in the place of principle, that 
 release would have acquitted the people of Spain, even if they 
 had adopted Joseph for their sovereign. Charles IV., influenced 
 by personal fears of the violence of his subjects, then in open 
 revolt against their monarch, had abdicated in favour of his son. 
 This abdication he disowned, when those fears were removed, 
 and transferred all his royal rights, and those of his family, to 
 the French Emperor. To this transfer Ferdinand assented. 
 Whether this assent was extorted or voluntary is unimportant, 
 inasmuch as his father, being restored to the exercise of his free 
 will, and no longer influenced by the terrors of a tumultuous 
 crowd, had voluntarily abdicated in favour of Napoleon ; and if 
 the people of Spain had not denied the right of their king to alter 
 the constitution, the transfer would have been executed. Ferdi 
 nand and his court were without energy, and had submitted to 
 fate ; and the Bourbon dynasty would have been at an end in 
 Spain, and possibly in Europe, if the Spanish people had not 
 taken the management of their public affairs into their own hands. 
 Unsupported by allies ; without arms, money or leaders ; in 
 presence of the French legions, who occupied the best part of 
 
53 
 
 the kingdom, and in defiance of the might of the most powerful 
 monarch that ever swayed a sceptre ; the Spanish nation re 
 solved to vindicate its independence, and the title of the heir to 
 the crown, or as it was expressed, in contempt of the doctrines 
 of the Holy Alliance, the right of Ferdinand to succeed, in the 
 lifetime of his father, to the crown, to which he was called by 
 the voice of the nation. The indignation of the whole body of 
 the people was sufficient to animate them to endure the first 
 brunt of Napoleon s power ; but to excite and support their 
 courage during a long and bloody struggle, with so powerful a 
 foe, it was necessary to present some other motive besides the 
 wrongs of Ferdinand. The insult to the national honour, though 
 keenly felt and warmly resented, would in time have been for 
 gotten. Men will not wage an eternal war for a point of honour, 
 and it was feared, that the people would soon see that it was 
 only a change of masters, and that their old dynasty did not 
 deserve so great a sacrifice as they were about to make for it. 
 Besides, by the abolition of the inquisition, the sequestration of 
 its property, the diminution of the number of monks and mon 
 asteries, the establishment of a national judiciary in the place of 
 the seignorial courts, and by the reformation of the financial 
 system, the new dynasty was conferring benefits upon the nation 
 that would have soon wiped away the odium of its usurpation. 
 The successes of the French, and the distress and want of union 
 among the Spaniards, were not without effect ; and the patriot 
 cause would probably have failed, if for the purpose of uniting 
 the nation, enlisting, all on the side of its independence, and 
 giving to the people some motive to resist, at the suggestion of 
 the Marquis of Wellesley,the Spanish junta, (which had assumed 
 the executive functions,) had not authorized the meeting of the 
 cortes for the purpose of giving a better government to the king 
 dom. 
 
 This body was well known to the Spanish nation as its su 
 preme and extraordinary legislature. Under the different 
 names of concilium, used by Gothic legislature ; of curia, the 
 term by which it was known during the twelfth century ; and 
 of cortes, first assumed under Ferdinand the Third, it had been 
 a constituent part of the government ever since the fall of the 
 
54 
 
 Roman empire. Laws were usually passed in the king s coun 
 cil ; but the cortes was entitled to be called together and con 
 sulted on all extraordinary occasions ; and if any could ever 
 be deserving of that epithet, it was when the royal family was 
 treacherously withdrawn from the kingdom, the soil invaded, 
 and the people looking for leaders to direct their efforts against 
 those who sought to subvert their independence by fraud and 
 violence. The powers of this body, and the mode of calling 
 it together are not well defined ; but sufficiently so to show, 
 that it had not exceeded its authority in framing the constitu 
 tion. Like all the European constitutions, the Spanish was a 
 collection of precedents from the history of the nation. The 
 king and the legislative body claimed to do whatever had been 
 done before by any of their predecessors ; and enough of con 
 tradictory precedents might have been found during the past 
 ages of violence and ignorance, to authorize almost any exer 
 cise of power, by either branch of the government. The cortes, 
 however, was entitled to very great authority from the earliest 
 history of Spain. It had often sat in judgment upon the sove 
 reigns of the nation. Ramiro III., Queen Urraca, and Henry 
 IV., were severally deposed by this body ; and when the Pope 
 sent his legate to restore the last named monarch to his throne, 
 one of the nobles, in the true spirit of Castilian freedom, told 
 him in full assembly, that " he and the nobility of the realm 
 would depose a king on just causes, and set up such as they 
 thought suited to the public good." It also held the public 
 purse, until the discovery of America gave other means to the 
 king, by which he was enabled to dispense with the cortes. A 
 body possessing such transcendent powers, in such an emer 
 gency had an undoubted right to alter the constitution. No 
 royal consent or formal charter could make such an alteration 
 more binding. To say nothing of the inherent right of the peo 
 ple to consult their own safety, the most obvious rules of Eu 
 ropean politics justified, and the laws of necessity commanded^ 
 that course. No objection could be made to the manner in 
 which the cortes was assembled, as Ferdinand had, by a decree 
 of May 5th, 1808, authorized any council or audience at liberty 
 
55 
 
 to summon the coftes. In 1810 the members met in the Isls 
 de Leon, and after much unnecessary debate formed the con* 
 stitution of 1812. It was popular, and did in fact redress many 
 of the grievances which had weighed so long and heavily upon 
 the Spanish nation. With the hope of obtaining something 
 like the common privileges of men, and a melioration of their 
 political condition as held out to them by the cortes, this gallant 
 people, with British aid, resisted the power of Napoleon, until, 
 by his reverses in the North of Europe, he was compelled to 
 withdraw his troops from Spain, to release Ferdinand, and re 
 store him to his devoted subjects. 
 
 With the government thus formed, Great Britain and Russia 
 did not think it unlawful to enter into an alliance ; England, at 
 the commencement of the Spanish war, and Alexander, when 
 Napoleon had invaded his territories and threatened his subju 
 gation. At this juncture no doubts were entertained by the 
 Russian Court of the legitimate formation of the government, 
 or of its power to do all the acts of a sovereign authority. It 
 had declared war, formed alliances, altered the constitution, 
 and meliorated the social condition of the common people, in 
 order to secure their affections, and to confirm and animate 
 them in their resistance to their invaders; and while these 
 things were done to resist the power of revolutionary France, 
 no objection was made to their right so to do. But when Fer* 
 dinand had recovered his freedom, and was restored to his here* 
 ditary crown, which had been preserved to him only by the 
 energy of the Spanish liberals, and the courage of the populace, 
 (for the Spanish courtiers succumbed to the French,) the scene 
 was changed, and principles operated in another manner. The 
 constitution had been adopted in the absence of the king, and 
 of course (according to the doctrine of the Holy Alliance) 
 without any legitimate authority, and it depended upon him, 
 when he resumed the reins of government, to sanction or dis 
 allow it. His intentions on that subject were not long doubtful. 
 After leaving Paris, Ferdinand, carefully avoiding the Atlantic 
 frontier of Spain where the English troops were stationed, took 
 a circuitous route for Valencia, where he staid nearly a month, 
 
56 
 
 probably arranging measures with his monarchical allies. On 
 the 1th of May, directly after the departure of Bonaparte for 
 Elba, and simultaneously with the rejection of the constitution 
 of France by Louis, Ferdinand, with the concurrence of his 
 courtiers, and supported by a powerful army, issued a procla 
 mation annulling the constitution, dissolving the cortes, and pro 
 scribing that party, by which the privileges of his family and 
 the national independence had been so nobly vindicated. It 
 is a fact worthy of note, as indicating the interest which the 
 Bourbon family in France took in the destruction of the popular 
 party in Spain, that during this interval of suspense, the French 
 journals were filled with paragraphs abusing the leaders of that 
 party, and intimating that they had determined to rebel against 
 the king. After this explicit declaration, Ferdinand proceeded 
 with great vigor in the royal regeneration of his kingdom. His 
 first care was to regulate the press, which was done by an edict 
 of the 12th of the same month. The editors of the Redactor, 
 and the Conciso, who had with the greatest energy maintained 
 the cause of their country against Napoleon, were arrested, and 
 subsequently sentenced to the gallies for ten years. The church 
 property was restored. The inquisition was re-established, and 
 united more strongly to the crown. The seignorial courts were 
 reorganized. The council of the Mesta was reinvested with the 
 power of ordering the merino flocks to traverse the kingdom, 
 to the great detriment of the agricultural part of the commu 
 nity ; and all the odious abuses of the ancient government were 
 re-established in their former vigor. The principal members of 
 the cortes, the patriot generals and their supporters, were thrown 
 into prison, to the number of more than four thousand, and the 
 gallies, castles and dungeons, the garrotte and inquisition, were 
 all put in requisition, to punish those who had been so audacious 
 as to assert the independence of Spain for the sake of the 
 nation, and not for the sake of the king alone." To such an 
 extent was this system of proscription carried, that the prisons, 
 not being sufficient to contain the victims of royal vengeance, 
 a Franciscan convent was converted into a state prison, and 
 many persons sought refuge in other countries. 
 
57 
 
 This persecution was not quietly submitted to. After thd 
 return of Ferdinand, scarcely a year passed without some se 
 rious rebellion. Although the joy felt in the national triumph 
 over the French, and in his rescue and restoration, afforded 
 him the best foundation for great personal popularity, so dis 
 gusted were his subjects at his ingratitude and tyranny, that 
 within four months after his return, the provinces of Navarre 
 and Andalusia were the seats of revolt ; arid to prevent the ex 
 tension of disaffection, the government were compelled to send 
 troops into the provinces of Estremadura, Arragon, Castile, 
 Catalonia, and Valencia, and permanent councils of war were 
 established in each province for the immediate trial and execu 
 tion of persons arrested. The subsequent insurrections of 
 Mina, Porlier, Lacy ; those at Barcelona, Valencia, Cadiz ; the 
 partial commotions in other parts of the kingdom ; and the 
 general insubordination, all indicated a settled and permanent 
 dislike to the anti-constitutional measures of Ferdinand, by no 
 means inferior to that first excited. Whilst this dissatisfaction 
 was increasing, the government was losing its official and natu 
 ral strength, by an imbecility and mismanagement on the part 
 of its ministers, only to be equalled by the ingratitude and ty 
 ranny of its head. The navy dwindled to a shadow, the army 
 badly fed, paid and clothed, and the finances in such a state of 
 disorder as to be inadequate to defray the ordinary expenses of 
 the municipal department, all showed the royal government to 
 be hastily tending to dissolution. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs in 1820, when the constitution 
 of 1812 was re-established, that constitution which had been 
 formed to remedy the most deplorable condition to which a 
 civilized country had ever been reduced. From being the most 
 powerful kingdom in Europe, Spain had become the weakest. 
 With a fertile soil and delicious climate, it was the abode of 
 famine. With the mines of Mexico and Peru at its disposal, it 
 was poor; and it possessed the monopoly of the most fertile 
 and largest colonies in the world, without having either com 
 merce or manufactures. Its rulers seemed to study political 
 economy only to contradict its precepts by their practice, and 
 
58 
 
 the efforts of government were solely directed to brutalize the 
 intellect and paralyze the energies of its subjects, and to im 
 poverish and depopulate the country. Neither did the honour 
 of Spain receive more efficient protection from its proper guar 
 dians, than its political prosperity. While the other monarchs 
 of the continent were the helpless victims, or reluctant instru 
 ments of Napoleon, Charles IV. became his willing agent. The 
 soldiers, navy and wealth of the kingdom were employed in 
 increasing the preponderance of an already too powerful neigh 
 bour. The strongest frontier of Europe was passed, and the 
 impregnable fortresses of Spain were surrendered without 
 resistance ; and the whole court, the old king and new, the 
 weak father and usurping son, with their attending nobles, from 
 a state of freedom, and while their fertile colonies offered them 
 an ample empire and a secure asylum, went to Bayonne to 
 place their persons and fortunes in the power of the French 
 Emperor, with the same weakness and irresolution, with which 
 the inferior animals yield to the fascination of a rattlesnake. 
 Was there not, in this state of things, a sufficient justification of 
 a new organization of the government ? Even if the royal 
 family had been on the throne, a revolution would have been 
 justified by the destruction which threatened the nation from 
 the maladministration of the government. But in its captivity 
 the circumstances altogether form a defence of the conduct of 
 the cortes and nation, in the adoption of the constitution, that 
 places it beyond the reach of censure or doubt. To deny this 
 proposition would be to contend, that the nation was bound to 
 acquiesce in its own destruction ; unless the king was in a state 
 to command it to act with a view to its safety. The whole 
 theory of government would be overturned, and its great 
 object, the welfare of the subjects, sacrificed for the benefit of 
 the rulers. 
 
 Such in truth is the essence of the principles of the Holy 
 Alliance. Government is by its leaders considered as estab 
 lished for the benefit of the privileged orders, and the people 
 are never to be mentioned, except when it is necessary to in 
 vent an excuse for some new encroachment upon their rights, 
 
59 
 
 or some violation of public law. Thus, under the pretence of 
 guarding them from themselves, they are to be debarred from 
 all interference in their government; and all reform proceeding 
 from a popular quarter is to be opposed and crushed by foreign 
 powers, lest the happiness of the subjects should be disturbed 
 by revolutionary excitement. Any revolution to extend the 
 royal prerogative may be tolerated, but one having popular 
 rights for its object is illegal. In what, excepting in the party 
 to be benefited by the change, did the overthrow of the con 
 stitution in 1814, differ from its re-establishment in 1820 ? The 
 army, in both instances, was the immediate instrument. Then, 
 we ask, had Ferdinand, upon his return from a captivity from 
 which he had been redeemed by the valour and perseverance 
 of his subjects, a greater right to overthrow a constitution with 
 which they were satisfied, than they had to re-establish it, when 
 that was the only way to the regeneration of their sinking go 
 vernment ? What gave him the right to disapprove of that 
 constitution ? He had it not as heir apparent to the crown. 
 The heir only succeeds to the right of his ancestor, and Charles 
 then living as monarch of Spain, could grant, according to the 
 principles of the legitimate party, a charter to his subjects ; a 
 charter, too, not to be violated by his successors. During the 
 life of Charles, therefore, the disapprobation of his son could 
 not annul the constitution. 
 
 But it may be said, Ferdinand was king of Spain by virtue of 
 his father s abdication. This abdication, however, was caused by 
 a popular commotion, and it was void, according to the doctrines 
 of the Holy Alliance, as the abdications of the kings of Naples 
 and Sardinia had also been considered. The people, in 1808, 
 finding the public affairs mismanaged, through the fondness of 
 the old king for Godoy, rose tumultuously, and to prevent them 
 from proceeding to extremities, Charles abdicated in favour of 
 his son. This change in the government was sanctioned by the 
 Congress of Vienna, and the continuance of Ferdinand on the 
 throne was " constituted part of the order of things" at the general 
 pacification. Ferdinand therefore owed his throne first to the 
 will of his subjects, and subsequently to their courage ; and it 
 
60 
 
 must be granted that the power which first gave to him his poli 
 tical authority, might, under like circumstances, either wholly 
 deprive him of it, or so limit it, as to promote the public welfare. 
 Besides, the great justifiable causes of a revolution still existed. 
 The situation of Spain in 1820, was, if possible, more deplorable 
 than in 1808. The public and private distress was greater. The 
 colonies which, at the time of his accession, were attached to 
 the mother country, were forever separated, and the resources 
 and armies of the kingdom were squandered in ill directed at 
 tempts to reduce them to submission. The navy was no more ; 
 the finances were in the greatest confusion, and with all these 
 causes of complaint, the people were goaded to desperation by 
 the tyranny of the inquisition and the government, and their in 
 dignation was roused by the unmerited persecution of the most 
 distinguished leaders and gallant generals of the patriot party. 
 If, then, the revolution which placed Ferdinand on the throne was 
 not contrary to the public law of Europe, much less was that of 
 1820, which limited his authority, and directed its exercise to 
 the promotion of the public prosperity. It w r as to restore a con. 
 stitution lawfully established and generally acknowledged ; but 
 which had been overthrown by the illegal violence of the military 
 and of their ungrateful sovereign. We have been thus particu 
 lar in the history of the Spanish revolution, that our readers 
 might fully understand the grounds upon which the contest rests, 
 and that it is for no other object than to strengthen the arbitrary 
 party. The indefeasible right of the monarchical part of the 
 government is no more sacred in the eyes of the alliance, than 
 any other principle, except as it contributes to effect this great 
 object of their combination. Those kings who had not entered 
 into their designs, were treated with as little ceremony as the 
 popular party. If the royal right be indefeasible, it is equally 
 so to a part of the kingdom as to the whole. Yet Norway was 
 wrested from the King of Denmark by the allies, in violation of 
 that right, and part of Saxony shared the same fate. These facts 
 prove that their peculiar regard for the monarchical principles 
 was only a pretence ; but the Spanish revolution was a peculiar 
 and striking instance, which at once illustrated the nature and 
 
01 
 
 extent of their designs. With that revolution the alliance finally 
 determined to interfere, and France was deputed to restore the 
 ancient order of things, inquisition and all. This appears by the 
 St. Petersburg Imperial Gazette of June 12, 1823, where in one 
 of the half official papers of the Russian Court, it is asserted, that 
 France acts in behalf of the alliance, by the invitation of that 
 body, as Austria did against the Neapolitan and Piedmontese 
 revolutions ; and the inquisition is spoken of as one of the pillars 
 of the Spanish monarchy. In justification of this attack upon 
 the independence of a powerful kingdom, it was not even pre 
 tended, that the Spanish revolution had been attended with those 
 massacres, which roused the indignation of mankind against the 
 Jacobins of France ; and the charge that the Spanish liberals 
 were instrumental in exciting commotions in that country, has 
 been so fully disproved in a late number of the Edinburgh Re 
 view, and was so faintly urged and at such a period of the nego 
 tiation with the Spanish government, that it can only be classed 
 with those pretences, with which the members of this alliance 
 have so often sought to disguise the real motives of their mea 
 sures. But in this age such reasons can neither justify those 
 who allege them, nor deceive the world. The British Court 
 has become convinced of the unhallowed designs of its allies, 
 and in the late diplomatic correspondence at Verona has mani 
 fested its determination not to sanction their proceedings. All 
 enlightened and unprejudiced men seem to be now satisfied by 
 the manifestoes delivered to the Spanish Court by the ministers 
 of the allied powers, and by a thousand other simultaneous and 
 kindred acts in other parts of Europe and towards other nations, 
 that a combination has been formed by the three Northern 
 courts, aided by the Bourbon parties in France and Spain, to 
 preserve by force the ancient order of things from reformation; 
 and by subjecting the press to the authority of government, by 
 supervising the universities, by the exile and proscription of the 
 friends of liberal principles whenever they appear, by the re-es 
 tablishment of the inquisition in Spain, the erection of a central 
 commission in Germany, and augmenting the strength of the 
 police in other countries, to extirpate the apparent causes of all 
 
62 
 
 revolutionary excitement ; or, in other words, to poison, at the 
 fountain head, the streams of political intelligence and improve 
 ment. 
 
 This is the unholy enterprise in which these statesmen have 
 embarked. From their elevated stations they have foreseen 
 the dangers which threaten their authority ; and instead of yield 
 ing to the manifest will of society, they have arrayed themselves 
 in opposition to it. The spirits of tyranny and bigotry have 
 been awakened by the events of the last thirty years, and are 
 rallying all their forces in support of the ancient establishments 
 of Europe. A numerous and powerful party answers to the 
 summons. It has possession of the armies, the police, and the 
 finances of the continent ; but it is opposed by whatever has 
 been and ever will be irresistible, the spirit of the age. The 
 increase of knowledge is constantly impairing the strength of 
 this party, and augmenting that of the popular party. The abuse 
 of their authority has rendered the mass of the community 
 hostile to its leaders. Great Britain has deserted them, and 
 they must fail in their attempts. Spain may be conquered by 
 her own divisions and by the armies of France, (though we trust 
 a different fate awaits that kingdom) the noble and generous 
 patriots of humanity may be more than once defeated and 
 trampled down by the legions of the combined despots ; but 
 the great cause of freedom will go on, gaining strength and 
 diffusing happiness, until its triumph shall be consummated in 
 the general melioration of the political institutions of the old 
 world. Its martyrs leave examples of more efficacy than all 
 their exertions while living, to animate and encourage their as 
 sociates. The generous blood of those heroic men, who testify 
 their devotion to the cause of mankind upon the scaffold or in 
 the field, does not sink into the ground, as water spilt in the 
 desert ; but fertilizes and invigorates the soil of freedom, and in 
 due season, like the teeth of the Boeotian Dragon, will spring up 
 in a harvest of armed men. The infant minds of the active and 
 enthusiastic, who, by their inborn talent and courage, are des 
 tined to lead their contemporaries, the nobility of God s creation, 
 are deeply impressed with the great example, and thirst to 
 
63 
 
 imitate it ; and whilst the institutions of society press so harshly 
 upon the manners of the age, and militate so strongly against 
 the most valued* principles, they never will be without a motive 
 to action. All the improvements of modern times ; the mami* 
 facturing, mechanical, and scientific arts ; the literary institu 
 tions ; the interests of commerce ; and more than all, the free 
 institutions of this republic, are indirectly opposed, and are 
 constantly raising up enemies to the aristocratic party. They 
 must ultimately effect its downfall. It has entered into a contest 
 in which it cannot be successful, until those causes, which con 
 tribute to the continuance of society, shall have ceased to operate. 
 The manners, feelings, and opinions of living men must be 
 totally changed ; a new inheritance of thought must be be 
 queathed to their descendants ; commerce, literature, and the 
 chief productive arts must be destroyed j the tide of improve 
 ment must flow back, and then, but not before, can the doctrines 
 of the Holy Alliance be re-established in their primitive security* 
 In the contest between a party thus destined to prevail and 
 another so determined to resist, in which the very foundations 
 of civilized society must be shaken, it is not impossible that 
 much may take place, which the friends of liberal principles 
 cannot approve. The passions of the multitude, never under 
 the strictest subjection, when emancipated from the severe 
 bonds of despotic government, may lead them into excesses 
 that will cast a stain upon the popular cause. We hope that 
 this may not be the case j but if it should, to whom ought those 
 excesses to be attributed ? Not to the friends of freedom, not 
 withstanding their followers may be the immediate actors. The 
 efficient cause often lies beyond the apparent agent. Subjects 
 have rights and feelings as well as their rulers. Their passions- 
 are excited at any violation of these rights, and their indignation 
 and anger become uncontrollable. When their attention is 
 once attracted to their political interests, and the subtlety, 
 hypocrisy, and injustice of the privileged orders, and their 
 open and secret opposition to any political reform, are made 
 manifest to their understandings ; it is folly then to charge upon 
 the lower classes, the guilt of those atrocities which may be 
 
64 
 
 Committed in a contest between them and the supporters of the 
 ancient order of things, brought on by the opposition of the 
 latter to a reformation, that was called for by the exigencies of 
 society. The consequences to which we allude are the neces 
 sary result of such conduct in such a state of society. The 
 operation of circumstances and principles upon men in the 
 mass, may be foretold with as much certainty, as any of the 
 phenomena of the natural world ; and if kings and their min 
 isters, with all the lights which are afforded to them by their 
 high stations, will oppose the spirit of the age, their destruction 
 is upon their own heads, as much as if they had placed them 
 selves in the channel of a torrent, when they heard the storm 
 gathering in the mountains. 
 
 It cannot be expected, that a contest involving such import 
 ant principles, portending such momentous results, affecting so 
 many interests, and upon so extensive a theatre, should pass by, 
 without affecting us in a national point of view. The exercise 
 of belligerent rights upon our extended commerce must present 
 many causes of offence. Besides, the nature of the contest is 
 such as almost necessarily to involve us in disputes with one of 
 the great contending parties. If success should favour the 
 allied monarchs, would they be satisfied with reforming the 
 government of Spain? Would not the Spanish colonies, as 
 part of the same empire, then demand their parental attention? 
 And might not the United States be next considered as deserv 
 ing their kind guardianship ? Would this government be likely 
 to receive more indulgence than that of Spain ? Its example 
 does infinitely more hurt to the cause of despotism than ten 
 Spanish revolutions. Its very existence is an attack upon the 
 monarchies of Europe ; its economy is a reproach upon their 
 wild extravagance ; and its policy condemns their ambition, 
 their unnecessary wars, and their whole political system. In 
 this contest, though not active, this republic is their most effi 
 cient enemy. She appeals to the feelings and interests of men, 
 and creates allies and enlists armies in the camps of her antago 
 nists. The wishes of our citizens, too, are all on the side of 
 the liberal party. These circumstances, connected with the 
 
65 
 
 jealousy with which our republican institutions are viewed by 
 the European courts, may produce a state of feeling, that will 
 not improbably result in direct hostility, and it is not impossible 
 that the extravagant pretensions of the Russian Emperor in the 
 Pacific, are only the first steps to a series of usurpations, which 
 we cannot resist without war, nor submit to without dishonour. 
 Neither is it by the active interference of the allied courts 
 alone, that our pacific relations may be disturbed. Our insti 
 tutions, feelings, and domestic policy, indeed, place us in oppo 
 sition to them ; but our foreign policy is equally opposed to the 
 commercial systems of the governments advocating liberal 
 political principles. The national policy of the United States 
 is founded upon two great maxims, just and equal laws at home, 
 and reciprocal commerce with foreign nations. The history 
 of the country, our wars, treaties, negotiations, and our statutes, 
 fully illustrate this proposition. This commercial system is 
 directly opposite to that which has always governed the great 
 powers in opposition to the Alliance. Spain, when in posses 
 sion of her South American Colonies, scrupulously debarred 
 all intercourse with those fertile countries. If by this revolu 
 tion she should attain any great physical force, whatever party 
 may rule over the kingdom, it is not probable that the govern 
 ment will acquiesce in their total separation, without making 
 some final and vigorous efforts for their subjection. Whether 
 she should attempt this unaided by her allies, or with the assist 
 ance of the Holy Alliance in case of the success of the despotic 
 party, or of Great Britain, provided the latter should, by the 
 length of the contest and the violence of the alliance, be com 
 pelled to side with Spain, is immaterial. In either event it will 
 present a fruitful field of dispute and controversy. The United 
 States have acknowledged the independence of the Spanish 
 Colonies ; their citizens are engaged in extensive and flourish 
 ing commerce with them, and no attempt can be made to sub 
 jugate these new powers, without bringing our interests and 
 rights in direct conflict with the pretensions of the invaders. 
 If England should join Spain in her contest with France, the 
 chance of this country s remaining at peace will be still more 
 
66 
 
 diminished. Great Britain is a greater monopolist of the com 
 merce of the world than even Spain. Her commercial system 
 has extended itself into every quarter, and has been everywhere 
 followed and supported by her wealth, her intrigues, and her 
 arms. In America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, it is seen and 
 felt, grasping and monopolizing the commerce and carrying 
 trade of all nations. Every war has its preservation for an 
 object, and every negotiation tends to extend and perpetuate 
 it. With nations, advocating a system so opposite to ours, and 
 with interests clashing with those of this republic at so many 
 points, it will be next to impossible, in the agitation and tempest 
 of a general political conflict, to preserve our harmonious rela 
 tions, and we should be prepared to maintain our rights in the 
 manner in which the rights of such a people should be main 
 tained. These considerations will doubtless induce the govern 
 ment of this country to preserve a rigid and scrupulous neu 
 trality betw r een these great parties. It is indifferent betw r een 
 them. Our feelings as freemen and men are indeed warmly 
 interested in the success of Spain ; but our national interests 
 are opposed to that policy which its government would proba 
 bly adopt in conformity with the public feeling of the nation, 
 and a too hearty adoption of their cause would compromise 
 some of our best interests in case of its success. But while 
 this government should preserve a strict neutrality, it should be 
 an armed neutrality. It is an unwise and unsafe presumption 
 to trust to the equity and forbearance of nations at war. In 
 all wars the rights of neutrals are too apt to be regarded by 
 the belligerents in a secondary point of view. Under the pre 
 tended sanction of some new principle of national law, their 
 commerce is daily subjected to some vexatious interruption, as 
 this country has already ascertained by dearly bought experi 
 ence. The questions constantly arising between belligerents 
 and neutrals as to their respective privileges, are tenfold in 
 creased in wars concerning opinions, in which the chief civilized 
 powers are engaged for the purpose of supporting or over 
 throwing any particular system. The elements of society are 
 then in agitation, and the public mind is alive to start and settle 
 
; 7 
 
 new principles in politics and jurisprudence. To vindicate the 
 rights of this country in such a crisis, the government must be 
 able to defend its cause by other means than sound logic. We 
 have not yet arrived at that Utopian age when redress will 
 follow the perception of injustice, and there is still enough of 
 uncertainty and confusion in national law to warrant discussion 
 upon many of the most important privileges of neutrals. New 
 and equally important questions will probably arise, and if we 
 would enjoy the dignity and privileges of an independent neu 
 tral, and would give force to our remonstrances and negotia 
 tions, we must be prepared to back them with those more 
 weighty reasons that are reserved for the peroration of a na 
 tional argument 
 
AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 
 
 June 5th, 1828. 
 
 MR. BLUNT, from the Executive Committee, brought in the 
 following report : 
 
 The Executive Committee, having taken into consideration, 
 according to the resolution of the Institute, the means best 
 adapted to encourage such manufactures, as shall most conduce 
 to the permanent interests of the country, and render this city 
 the great depot of American fabrics, beg leave to report, that 
 it was not deemed expedient to enter into an examination of 
 the policy of a high tariff, for the encouragement of domestic 
 industry. This was not considered as necessarily coming within 
 the scope of the resolution. The policy of the country, by the 
 late tariff, and that of 1824, maybe considered as settled; 
 and in conformity with the general sentiment of the inhabitants 
 of the United States, it has resulted in favour of protection. 
 Whilst the confederacy continues under one government, it 
 cannot be doubted that the local interests of New- York will be 
 better consulted, by harmoniously co-operating with the mass of 
 the community, and accommodating her pursuits to the national 
 policy ; than by making a vain opposition to a policy finally 
 settled and solemnly promulgated, and foregoing all the benefits 
 resulting from her natural arid acquired advantages, because 
 unable to realize her desires to their fullest extent. Whatever 
 may be the opinion in this community as to the details of the 
 present tariff, and as to its effects upon the various branches of 
 domestic industry, it is manifest that the United States now 
 are, and have been from their first settlement, in a progressive 
 state, so far as it regards manufactures. From a state of de- 
 
70 
 
 pendence upon Europe for the comforts and necessaries of life, 
 they have advanced to a hight point of improvement and com 
 parative independence. At different periods, new manufactures 
 have been established in the country according to its wants, 
 and its increasing ability to supply them from its own resources. 
 There is no characteristic of our history more marked than the 
 astonishing rapidity with which the mechanic arts and the use 
 ful manufactures have been established in the United States ; 
 and it seems to be their appropriate destiny to transfer the arts, 
 the manufactures, and the civilization of Europe, to America, 
 and to naturalize them in a new world. 
 
 A comparative view taken of any two periods of time, de 
 monstrates this proposition. 
 
 Indeed, nothing is more certain than that an exchange be 
 tween two nations, in the temperate zones, of agricultural pro 
 ducts for manufactures, cannot be a permanent commerce, 
 except where the country furnishing the raw materials is either 
 in a colonial state, or too poor or ignorant for manufacturing. 
 
 The history of the British settlements in America strikingly 
 illustrates this remark. Before the revolution, their exports 
 were solely the productions of the soil. Their emancipation 
 from their colonial shackles gave a new direction to their in 
 dustry ; and although the distracted condition of Europe, during 
 the first twenty-five years of their existence as an independent 
 power, created an extraordinary demand for agricultural pro 
 ductions, the manufactures of the country acquired stability and 
 strength, and had attained so high a rank among the branches 
 of national industry, as to constitute one twentieth of our do 
 mestic exports on an average of the years between 1803 and 
 1811. Since the general peace in the old world, a still greater 
 alteration has taken place in the employments of the inhabitants 
 of this republic. 
 
 Less demand has existed for our produce ; new manufactures 
 have sprung up in the country ; and under the fostering influ 
 ence of the tariff of 1824, they have suddenly advanced so as 
 to compose more than one tenth of our domestic exports ; being 
 in 1820, in the proportion of $5,852,000 to $52,528,000 ; and 
 in 1827, of 80,386,000 to $58,368,000. 
 
71 
 
 Such rapid changes in the condition of a country, all tending 
 to augment its wealth and resources, justify a modification in 
 its policy to suit its varying circumstances. As the channels of 
 trade vary, new means of employment must be devised, and it 
 is an indication of true wisdom, on the part of the government, 
 to modify its laws, so as to promote the prosperity of its citizens, 
 and to secure to them the largest share of the navigation be 
 tween the United States and other countries. We give this 
 preference to navigation, not only because it is that branch of 
 domestic industry most exposed to foreign competition, and of 
 course most entitled to protection ; but because, as an import 
 ant arm of national defence, it amply repays in war the protec 
 tion it receives in peace. We do not mean, that the prosperity 
 of navigation should be promoted by the sacrifice of the other 
 great branches of national industry. On the contrary, it must 
 depend on their success. Commerce is only the exchange of 
 the excess of the productions over the consumption of a com* 
 munity, for the surplus products of other countries ; and its 
 permanent prosperity must be based upon the flourishing con* 
 dition of the agricultural and manufacturing classes. In regu 
 lating the terms upon which these exchanges are to be made, 
 sound policy dictates a due consideration of the relative wants 
 of the communities trading together, and their ability to supply 
 the materials of a mutually profitable commerce. It is only in 
 that manner that an extensive commerce can be encouraged 
 and secured ; and in framing the permanent and fundamental 
 commercial regulations of the United States, care should be 
 taken to form them so as to promote their trade with those 
 countries, whose natural productions are most in demand here, 
 and whose inhabitants depend upon us for the supply of their 
 wants. 
 
 The fertility of the soil, and the rich and varied productions 
 of the southern portions of this continent, their relative position 
 to the United States, the habits and employments of their in 
 habitants, and their deficiency in capital and manufacturing 
 skill, all designate those new communities as our best and most 
 permanent customers. The sudden and simultaneous opening 
 
72 
 
 of those vast regions to the trade of the world, by their emanci 
 pation from Spain, and that at a time when, by the return of the 
 inhabitants of Europe to the employments of peace, the demand 
 for our agricultural productions was dimished, justified the go 
 vernment in encouraging at home the means of furnishing the 
 materials of a new commerce, which promised full remunera 
 tion for the sacrifices consequent upon its first establishment. 
 
 The trade between the United States and South America 
 must be an exchange of manufactures for the natural produc 
 tions of a fertile soil in a warm climate ; and in order to secure 
 and augment it, encouragement must be afforded to the deve- 
 lopement of the mechanical skill of our citizens. We do not 
 mean to say, that that encouragement has been given by the 
 tariff lately passed. On the contrary, we think it impolitic in 
 its details, peculiarly oppressive to the navigating interest, and 
 intentionally rendered so by an opposition to the policy, which 
 passed the bounds of prudence and patriotism. The propriety 
 of this act, however, is not now the question. Whatever may 
 be our opinion as to its policy, it is now the law of the land ; 
 and capital must be invested, and commercial enterprises under 
 taken, with reference to its details. Some change will take 
 place in the direction of our trade ; and commanding as the 
 position of New-York is, in relation to the commerce of the 
 country, she must enjoy her full share of any advantages grow 
 ing out of this alteration in our policy. Our productions must 
 be exchanged, as heretofore, for the surplus productions of other 
 nations ; and New-York, as formerly, must be the great depot 
 and mart of exchange. The only question is, how to avail our 
 selves, to the utmost, of this change in the national policy by 
 means of our local advantages. So far as the fabrics of Ame 
 rican skill and industry supply the place of European manufac 
 tures, whether for domestic or foreign consumption, they must 
 become the objects of commerce. Vessels must be employed 
 to transport them, and merchants and factors must superintend 
 their distribution among the consumers. Every effort, then, 
 should be made to render this city the great depot of domestic 
 manufactures, as well as of the productions of other countries ; 
 
and to conform, according to our circumstances, to the fixed 
 and settled policy of the countryi 
 
 In Boston, extraordinary exertions have been made to turn 
 the trade growing out of this system into that port, and to make 
 that city the emporium of domestic manufactures. A semi 
 annual fair has been established, to induce purchasers and man 
 ufacturers to resort to that market. The effects of these spirited 
 measures upon the navigation of that port are already visible. 
 Hitherto the increase of tonnage has been greater in New- York 
 than in any of the large ports ; but during the last year a sen 
 sible superiority has been manifested in favour of Boston. 
 While the annual increase in the tonnage of New- York has 
 been only 11,805 tons, that of Boston has amounted to 19,105 
 tons; being only 4 per cent, increase in this port, and 13 per 
 cent, in Boston. During the same year, the rate of increase 
 on the whole tonnage of the United States has amounted to 
 7\ per cent. This disadvantageous result on the part of New^ 
 York, compared with the Union at large, and more especially, 
 when compared with the chief mart of domestic fabrics, indi 
 cates some falling off in the enterprise which has heretofore 
 distinguished this community, or an inattention to the changes 
 which have been made in the direction of domestic industry. 
 
 Your Committee will not ask whether the inhabitants of this 
 city will continue neglectful of their peculiar advantages-C 
 losing on one side, without attempting to gain on the other. 
 The field of competition is open to all * and the enterprising 
 character of New- York, and her superiority of position, will 
 insure success in the contest. A fair to be held in this metro 
 polis in the spring and fall of each year, to which the manufac* 
 turers of the whole country might be induced to send their 
 goods, by the high prices to be obtained in the principal market 
 of the United States, as well as by premiums to be given to the 
 best specimens of the different productions of domestic industry, 
 would very soon render this city the emporium of American 
 manufactures. 
 
 The emulation excited by competition on such a theatre, 
 would improve the quality of the goods ; while the character 
 
T4 
 
 gained by success in this market would more than compensate 
 for any extraordinary pains taken to improve their quality, by- 
 its general effects upon their sale. Purchasers, too, would be 
 attracted to such a fair ; and this city would reap the advan 
 tages of a liberal distribution of premiums to the successful 
 competitors, by an increase in its trade, and by the influx of 
 strangers, in crowds, either to exhibit their fabrics, or as 
 purchasers. 
 
 In conclusion, your Committee beg leave to recommend a 
 semi-annual fair, to be held during the second weeks of October 
 and April ; and with the view of rewarding the skill of the Ame 
 rican mechanic and manufacturer, your committee recommend 
 premiums to be awarded, under the superintendence of the 
 American Institute. 
 
ARGUMENT 
 
 IN THE COURT OF IMPEACHMENTS AND FOR THE CORRECTION OF 
 ERRORS OF THE STATE OF NEW- YORK. 
 
 CHARLES KING AND JOHNSTON VERPLANCK, Plaintiffs in Error, 
 
 vs. 
 ERASTUS ROOT, Defendant in Error. 
 
 JOSEPH BLUNT opened the argument for the plaintiffs in error. 
 
 This action, he stated, was brought for a publication in the 
 New- York American, alleged to be libellous, and made under 
 the following circumstances : 
 
 During the presidential election of 1824, an extra session of 
 the legislature of New- York was called by the governor, with 
 the view of giving to the people, in their primary assemblies, the 
 choice of the members of the electoral college of this state. 
 
 A powerful party in the legislature, favouring the election of 
 Mr. Crawford, was opposed to this project ; and while it was 
 warmly urged upon the legislature by a large portion of the 
 community, it was as warmly resisted by others. Great excite 
 ment was produced, and the attention of the whole state w r as 
 directed upon the proceedings of the legislature at Albany. 
 The meeting took place at a season of the year, when Albany 
 was thronged with strangers, and the capital was daily filled 
 during the session with intelligent and distinguished men from 
 the different states of the confederacy. On this striking occa 
 sion, in the presence of an assemblage comprehending many of 
 the most influential and illustrious names of our country, the 
 plaintiff, who is the defendant in error, while presiding over the 
 senate of the state, conducted himself in a manner which induced 
 one of the defendants, who was then in the senate chamber, .to 
 
76 
 
 make the publication complained of, giving an account of his 
 appearance and conduct at that time, and to animadvert upon 
 it in language, which such conduct fully deserved. 
 
 I do not mean to contend in this place, that this account was 
 accurate. This I am precluded from doing by the verdict of 
 the jury. All that the defendants are required to show is, that 
 they fully believed that their account was correct, that they had 
 good reasons for believing it, and that they made no intentional 
 misrepresentations. 
 
 If that were the case, no language could be deemed too harsh 
 and severe in commenting upon acts, which degraded not only 
 the station filled by the plaintiff, but reflected discredit upon the 
 people of the state, and the body over which he presided. A 
 citizen, attached to our institutions, and zealous for their charac 
 ter, and forming such conclusions from w r hat actually passed 
 before his eyes, would be filled with indignation, and his justly 
 excited feelings would manifest themselves in strong and appro 
 priate expressions. 
 
 Such was the impression made upon the mind of the defendant^ 
 who wrote the libel in question, by the conduct of the plaintiff. 
 Believing him to have been intoxicated on that occasion, he did 
 not hesitate to say so ; and he animadverted upon his situation 
 in terms of pointed severity. 
 
 For so doing this action was brought by the plaintiff, and the 
 venue was laid in Delaware county, the place of his own resi 
 dence. The defendants sought to have the trial take place either 
 in Albany, where the transaction occurred, or in New- York, 
 where many persons, who were present at the time alluded to, 
 resided. 
 
 This motion \vas resisted by the plaintiff, and upon the pretence 
 that he had as many witnesses in his own county as the defend 
 ants had in New-York, (although he stated in his deposition 
 that he was unacquainted with their names,) the venue was re 
 tained in Delaware. 
 
 Under such circumstances the trial came on, and the defend 
 ants acting in good faith and under the impressions which in 
 fluenced them in publishing th/> libel, attempted to prove it to 
 
77 
 
 be true. With this view they introduced several witnesses who 
 were present on the occasion referred to, all men of the highest 
 character in both public and private life ; three members of the 
 senate, two gentlemen who now represent their country at 
 different courts of Europe, and three others who were also 
 present, and who all stated that the description given of the 
 plaintiff in the alleged libel was substantially true. Indeed, 
 the statement given by them fully justified the publication, and 
 the judge who tried the cause charged the jury, that " there was 
 no doubt of the entire credibility of every witness upon either 
 side. They were gentlemen of the first integrity and intelligence, 
 and no inducement could be supposed in the case sufficient to 
 lead them to misrepresent or withhold any fact within their 
 knowledge." In addition to this testimony, they proved that it 
 was currently reported in Albany at the time, that the plaintiff 
 was intoxicated in the senate on the occasion alluded to : and 
 the character of the plaintiff as an habitual and notorious drunk 
 ard was established beyond all controversy. 
 
 On the other hand, the plaintiff produced several witnesses, 
 who stated that they were also present in the senate, and that 
 in their opinion he was not intoxicated. They did not, however, 
 attempt to deny that his character for sobriety was bad. 
 
 After a full discussion of the testimony, the honourable judge 
 who tried the cause charged the jury, and they retired. After being 
 out all night they came in, and upon his reiterating a portion of 
 the charge to which exception had been taken, they rendered a 
 verdict for $1,400 in favour of the plaintiff. 
 
 The Supreme Court was moved for a new trial, on exceptions 
 to the legal principles advanced in the charge of the judge, and 
 also on the ground, that the verdict was contrary to evidence. 
 This motion having been denied, a writ of error was brought 
 on the bill of exceptions, and the cause is now here for a re 
 version of the legal doctrines laid down at the trial of this cause. 
 The grounds urged upon the consideration of the Supreme Court 
 are comprehended in the following propositions : 
 
 1st. Proper testimony was excluded from the consideration 
 of the jury. 
 
78 
 
 2d. The judge ought, when required so to do, to have charged 
 the jury that if they believed the publication to have been made 
 in good faith, and with a full belief in its truth, these circum 
 stances should induce them to mitigate the damages. 
 
 3d. The question of malice ought to have been submitted 
 upon all the evidence, as a question of fact for the decision of 
 the jury. 
 
 It is to be observed, that at the trial of the cause, the defend 
 ants were not permitted to inquire into the general habits of 
 the plaintiff for temperance, not even upon cross-examination. 
 
 The testimony concerning the prevalence of the concurrent 
 reports at Albany as to the plaintiff s conduct in the senate on 
 the occasion alluded to, was also excluded from the considera 
 tion of the jury, as well as the evidence of the general character 
 of the plaintiff for intemperance, unless it appeared to be equal 
 in degree with the offence charged. They were told that this 
 testimony was not to be taken into consideration by them ; not 
 even in their estimation of damages ; and this opinion concern 
 ing general character was reiterated, when the jury, puzzled as 
 some were at the charge, came into court for new and clearer 
 directions. 
 
 The jury were also told, and this formed one of the principal 
 objections to the charge, that they were simply to inquire 
 whether the plaintiff was intoxicated, as described by the defend 
 ants. The intention and motives of the defendants in making 
 the charge, their belief in its truth, were excluded from their 
 consideration. Their malice, it was stated, and emphatically 
 stated by the judge, was a legal inference ; a conclusion of law 
 from the falsity of the publication ; and notwithstanding he was 
 requested to direct the jury to inquire into the motives of the 
 defendants, he refused so to do, but persisted in saying that their 
 intention or malice was a legal inference. (Here Mr. Blunt read 
 the charge of the judge. Vide Am. Ann. Register, for 182G-27, 
 p. 247, and then proceeded :) 
 
 When this opinion came before the Supreme Court for revi 
 sion, the court did not altogether confirm all the positions of the 
 judge at circuit. 
 
79 
 
 It assumed a new ground, and one which enabled it to avokf 
 deciding directly upon all the questions submitted for its con 
 sideration. 
 
 The judge at the circuit charged the jury, that inasmuch as 
 the defendants had professed to state what they saw, no con 
 current reports at Albany of the plaintiff s drunkenness were 
 admissible in mitigation of damages, as showing the belief of 
 the defendants in their statement. The supreme court, per 
 ceiving this ground to be untenable, assumed a different one, 
 and observed that the notice of justification accompanying the 
 plea of not guilty, was an admission of malice, and therefore 
 no evidence short of proving the truth of the charges was ad 
 missible in mitigation of damages, as showing the motives of 
 the defendants. 
 
 This was a new ground, but still it as completely excluded 
 the evidence offered in mitigation, as that assumed by the judge 
 at circuit ; and it will be incumbent on us, in reference to that 
 point, to overturn both positions; and after reading the reasons 
 advanced by the Supreme Court in support of its decision, we 
 shall proceed to inquire into their validity, as well as into the 
 correctness of those advanced by the judge at the trial. (The 
 opinion of the Supreme Court was then read. Vide page 259, 
 Am. Ann. Register, for 1826-27.) 
 
 The first question, he continued, that we shall submit for the 
 consideration of this court, grows out of the rejection of proper 
 testimony, whether by the total exclusion of it by the judge, or 
 by his charging the jury to disregard it in making up their ver 
 dict. In cross-examining the witnesses produced on the payt 
 of the plaintiff, they were asked, what were the general habits 
 of the plaintiff as to temperance. This course of cross-exami 
 nation being objected to, was prohibited by the judge. 
 
 What was the effect of this decision under the circumstances 
 in which the cause was then placed ? The jury was inquiring 
 into the condition of the plaintiff at a particular time. Several 
 respectable witnesses on the part of the defendants said that he 
 was intoxicated. Others produced by the plaintiff said, that in 
 their opinion he was sober. The testimony was conflicting, 
 
80 
 
 and it was the province of the jury to decide upon it. If, then, 
 it had appeared, that it was the general and even invariable 
 habit of the plaintiff* to commence the day with strong and fre 
 quent potations, repeated as the day advanced, until the after 
 noon (the time concerning which the inquiry was made) would 
 always find him completely under their influence, and in a state 
 either of riotous or beastly drunkenness ; suppose that the proof 
 to be produced would have established this as his invariable 
 habit, (and we have a right to assume this as a fact,) what, then, 
 was the effect of excluding it ? It deprived the defendants of 
 strong corroborative evidence, which would have fortified and 
 strengthened the statements of their witnesses. If his habit 
 w r as to get drunk every day, their opinion that he was intoxi 
 cated on the afternoon alluded to, was more likely to be correct 
 than the opposite opinion 5 and the proof would have furnished 
 the jury with a powerful reason to adopt their statement. 
 Again, the motives of the defendants in making the publication 
 were to be inquired into. Were they actuated by malice, or 
 not? This was one of the questions the jury was compelled to 
 pass upon; first, (as we shall contend,) in reference to the jus 
 tification of the defendants ; and secondly, in estimating the 
 amount of damages. 
 
 Was this proof thus excluded calculated to throw any light 
 upon their motives ? In ascertaining this, we must inquire 
 whether they believed the charge or not, and whether they 
 would not be more likely to believe that he was intoxicated at 
 the time alluded to, provided he was in the habit of daily in 
 toxication. 
 
 There were obviously some peculiarities in his appearance, 
 from which some of the spectators drew one conclusion and 
 others drew an opposite conclusion. The defendants witnesses 
 inferred that he was drunk, and his own witnesses thought that 
 he was sober. The jury, in inquiring into the motives of the 
 defendants, were not only to ascertain which of these conclu 
 sions was correct ; but also whether a man might not have 
 fairly inferred that the plaintiff" was intoxicated, and whether 
 the defendants had not formed that opinion in good faith. 
 
81 
 
 In both points of view, therefore, the testimony was admis 
 sible, first, to fortify the conclusion drawn as to his intoxicated 
 condition, and secondly, to exculpate the defendants from all 
 malice in making the charge. In the latter point of view the 
 judge erred in charging the jury, that the concurrent report at 
 Albany was not admissible in mitigation of damages. 
 
 If it was generally believed, that the plaintiff was in the 
 condition in which he was described to be, it demonstrates that 
 there was good reason to believe what the defendants published 
 concerning him, and that the defendants believing it, were not 
 actuated by malice in making the publication. That the de 
 fendants made the statement in good faith is a complete answer 
 to all imputation of malicious falsehood ; and while malice 
 forms a good ground for aggravating damages, the absence of 
 malice affords an equally good reason for mitigating them. 
 
 These principles are so clear, that it is not a little remarkable 
 that the judge should have ventured to charge in opposition to 
 them, and the extraordinary reason he advanced for his extra 
 ordinary position deserves a particular examination. 
 
 The defendants stated that " they saw what they asserted," and 
 therefore, said the judge, no concurrent report could have pro 
 duced their belief in the charge. The honourable judge here 
 fell into the common error of forming a general rule from par 
 ticular instances, not altogether similar to the case under con 
 sideration. 
 
 If the charge had been made concerning a fact, about which 
 an eye observer could have made no mistake, then the defend 
 ants mode of stating it might have been evidence of malice. 
 As if the defendants had stated, that they saw the plaintiff sen 
 tenced to an infamous punishment for a criminal offence. Here 
 there could have been no mistake ; and in stating that they saw 
 what they stated, they evince malice by asserting what they 
 must have known to be false. But when the charge is simply 
 an inference from appearances, and men might honestly draw 
 different conclusions from the same appearances, the fact that 
 many drew the same inference, as to the plaintiff s condition, 
 affords strong proof of the sincerity of their belief, and of their 
 
 11 
 
good faith in making the statement complained of. It is-one* 
 thing to be mistaken, and it is another to make an intentional 
 misstatement, and although the injury to the plaintiff may be the 
 same ; the motive of the defendant, which in truth is the sole 
 foundation of what are called vindictive damages, is entirely 
 different in the latter case, and ought materially to mitigate the 
 damages, 
 
 In the case of Wolcott vs. Hall, G Mass., 514, which was 
 relied on in the Supreme Court to sustain the doctrine of the 
 circuit judge, the reports offered in evidence were not contem 
 poraneous, and were rejected by the court on the ground that 
 the reports might have been set on foot by the very slander in 
 question. They were consequently properly rejected. This 
 case is different, inasmuch as the reports were contemporaneous 
 with the conduct alluded to, and the publication was subse 
 quently made in a New-York journal. The true rule is laid 
 down in Leceister vs. Walter, 2d Campbell, 251 , and con 
 firmed by this court, in the case of Paddocks vs. Salisbury, 2d 
 Cowen, 814. There, a general suspicion that plaintiff was 
 guilty of the offence charged, was admitted in mitigation of 
 damages, and the doctrine is reasonable, as such a suspicion or 
 belief prepares the mind to adopt the opinion on which the 
 charge is* founded, 
 
 But the judge also said, at the circuit, that the concurrent 
 report was not admissible, unless it appeared that defendants 
 said nothing more than was reported at Albany. This was 
 also an erroneous view of the principle. The principle is, that 
 all mitigating circumstances are admissible in mitigation. The 
 proposition is so clear, and even identical, that an apology would 
 be necessary for stating it, had it not been contradicted by such 
 high authority. An exaggeration of a report is not so great an 
 offence as a fabricated falsehood. The report showed that 
 others entertained a belief, that the plaintiff was intoxicated at 
 the time referred to ; and the different opinions of men, as to 
 the degree of excitement under which he laboured, could not 
 so entirely alter the applicability of the rule, as to exclude the 
 report from the consideration of the jury, in estimating the 
 damage*. 
 
S3 
 
 The judge was misled, by not preserving the distinction be 
 tween a case where the offence charged is different in cha 
 racter from that about which the report prevails, and where it 
 enly differs in degree, and not in kind. Here the offence was 
 of the same character, and because the exact degree of intoxi 
 cation was not specified in the report, it is most extraordinary 
 that the jury should not have been allowed to consider the con 
 current opinions of other persons, as to the condition of the 
 plaintiff, even as a circumstance in mitigation^ that a general 
 belief, which, if proved before the jury from the mouths of the 
 multitude who were present, would have completely exculpated 
 the defendants, shall not be regarded, even as a mitigating cir 
 cumstance. This is the doctrine of the judge, and it is, in itself, 
 a doctrine so repugnant to reason and common sense, that the 
 simple statement of it, is a stronger proof of its absurdity, than 
 any argument and illustration that I can offer. 
 
 I now pass to the ground assumed by the Supreme Court, to 
 justify the exclusion of the testimony offered in mitigation of 
 damages. It was perceived that the reasons offered by the 
 judge, at the circuit, were unsound, and that this exclusion could 
 not be maintained on that ground. A new position was conse 
 quently taken, and technical doctrines were interposed, which 
 as effectually excluded the defendants from their legitimate de 
 fence. In preparing this cause for trial, the defendants believing 
 that they could substantiate the charges in the publication com 
 plained of, had given notice of their justification with their plea. 
 They had also given notice that they would prove, " that the 
 conduct and appearance of the plaintiff, at the time alluded to, 
 were such as to induce the belief that he was intoxicated, and 
 to justify the obnoxious publication." 
 
 This notice was given in good faith, and in a full and honest 
 belief of their ability to prove the charge. I would have a right, 
 if it were necessary, even without proof, to assume this to be so. 
 But it is not necessary. The good faith of the defendants is fully 
 established by the statements of the respectable witnesses pro 
 duced by them at the trial, who completely substantiated the 
 truth of the belief, as far as human testimony could prove it. 
 
84 
 
 It is true, that this evidence did not produce conviction in the 
 minds of a Delaware jury, but it at least established one fact, 
 that the defendants sincerely believed the truth of their state 
 ments. The judge himself said in his charge, that "there was 
 no doubt of the entire credibility of every witness, upon either 
 side." And this after the defendants witnesses swore to every 
 particular fact asserted in the libel. 
 
 Upon a review of the whole testimony, it is impossible to doubt, 
 that the defendants made the publication with proper motives 
 and in good faith, and that believing it to be true, they gave the 
 notice annexed to their plea. 
 
 In this state of facts, the Supreme Court refuses the applica 
 tion for a new trial, on account of the rejection of all this tes 
 timony, developing the real motives of the defendants, because 
 (as it is gravely asserted in the opinion of the court) the defend 
 ants admitted malice by undertaking to justify. 
 
 "By the notice annexed to the plea, the malice is confessed 
 upon the record." " Such," say the court, after reiterating this 
 doctrine in various parts of its opinion, " are the conclusions to 
 be drawn from adjudged cases and approved principles." 
 
 Supposing, for the sake of argument, this doctrine to be cor 
 rect, in what situation does it place defendants in actions of 
 libel? If they intend to justify, they must either plead or give 
 notice of justification. Unless they do that, they are not per 
 mitted to offer any testimony establishing the truth of the libel. 
 These are approved principles, and they are conformable to 
 equity and common sense. If the defendant means to estab 
 lish the truth of the charge before a jury, it is reasonable that 
 he should give the plaintiff notice of his intention. 
 
 But does it necessarily follow, that because defendants some 
 times believe the charges they make to be true, they always 
 make them maliciously ? This publication was made concern 
 ing a public officer, then a candidate before the people for re 
 election. The statements made therein were concerning his 
 public conduct. The subject matter was deeply interesting to 
 the public. Now, I ask, if every accusation against a public 
 officer necessarily proceeds from malicious motives ? This is 
 
85 
 
 the effect of the doctrine. Whether true or false, the accusa 
 tion is malicious. It proceeds from a malignant motive, because 
 the justification must be preceded by a notice, and a notice 
 according to the court, " is an admission of malice upon the 
 record." 
 
 If the defendants in this case believed the statements they 
 made, they were bound to make the publication in question. 
 They were bound, as good citizens and electors, to communi 
 cate these facts to their fellow citizens. If the plaintiff were 
 intoxicated, or if they believed him to have been so, as citizens 
 of a free country, as editors of a public journal, they ought to 
 have communicated the fact. They did believe it. Their wit 
 nesses believed it. They therefore were not actuated by malice 
 in publishing their statement, but by a motive having reference 
 to the public welfare. At all events, their motives were the 
 proper subjects of inquiry before the jury, and not matter of 
 record. If their belief in the truth of their statement con 
 tinued unchanged, they were compelled to give a notice of jus 
 tification in order to defend themselves. They do not say by 
 that notice, that they made the charge maliciously, but that they 
 continue to believe it true, and mean to produce their evidence 
 before the jury at the trial. Grant that they labour under a 
 delusion ! Is self-deception malice ? Is good faith and sincere 
 belief malignity ? Or did any defendant ever dream that by 
 giving such a notice in good faith, he gave a written admission 
 of his malice, which he had already, in his previous plea, ex 
 pressly denied ? 
 
 If this doctrine be true, it must be true in all cases where this 
 admission of malice is to be found upon the record. 
 
 To what conclusions would this lead us ? Suppose the plain 
 tiff, on the occasion alluded to, had feigned drunkenness that, 
 actuated by a holy zeal for his party, like the elder Brutus, he 
 had concealed his sanity and sobriety under the guise of a 
 brutish behaviour and sottish demeanour. The defendants, not 
 penetrating his patriotic motives, believe him to be what he 
 seems, and they say the man is drunk. They also give notice, 
 when prosecuted, that they will prove the truth of their state- 
 
86 
 
 ment. At the trial the truth appears. The plaintiff proves that 
 on that particular day, so far from yielding to his ordinary 
 habits of intemperance, he had wholly abstained from drink, 
 that he might act more to the life the part of a drunken patriot. 
 Are the defendants to be punished because they have been thus 
 entrapped ? and is their notice to be considered, as the court 
 call it, an admission of malice on the record ? Again, suppose 
 the defendants to be informed of the peculation of a public 
 officer, by credible persons, whose statements are fortified by 
 documentary evidence. Upon this authority a statement is 
 made, which is followed by a prosecution. A notice of justifi 
 cation of course is given. At the trial the men, upon whose 
 authority the statement was made, do not appear ; the docu 
 ments are produced, and they are shown to be fabrications. 
 The incorrectness of the charge is manifest the character of 
 a public servant has been injured, and his counsel call for high 
 and vindictive damages for this malicious libel. The defendants 
 now show that they were deceived ; nay more, that this decep 
 tion was set on foot by the plaintiff himself, who employed the 
 informers, and fabricated the documents. 
 
 I ask if, in this case, the defendants mistake is to be visited 
 with vindictive damages ? and yet, such is the legitimate conse 
 quence of this doctrine of "malice admitted upon the record." 
 Can a court in this enlightened age assent to doctrines so repug 
 nant to every principle of justice ? Even the cases cited by 
 the court to sustain this extraordinary proposition, are not simi 
 lar to the one before the court. In the case of Wolcott vs. 
 Hall, 6 Mass. 514, nothing was pleaded but a justification. The 
 general issue, denying the averments in the declaration, (of 
 which the malicious publication is a principal one,) was not 
 pleaded. Nothing but the truth of the charge was pleaded ; 
 and under the rule that nothing comes in issue, but what is put 
 in issue by the pleadings, the jury were confined to that simple 
 inquiry. The case of Matson vs. Buck, 5 Cowen, 499, is placed 
 upon the case of Wolcott vs. Hall. Here the general issue 
 was pleaded with a notice, and in such cases all evidence in 
 mitigation is admissible. Such was the law as declared by the 
 
87 
 
 Supreme Court of Massachusetts, (the same court, whose de 
 cision in Wolcott and Hall met with such approbation from the 
 Supreme Court of this state,) in the cause of Larned vs. Buffing- 
 ton, 3 Mass., 546. In that case, the general issue was pleaded 
 with a plea of justification, and the court there admitted evi 
 dence in mitigation, and said that where, through the fault of 
 the plaintiff, defendant had good cause to believe the charge, 
 it was a ground of mitigation. He may also prove that he 
 made the publication with honest intentions. 
 
 The same rule was laid down in the cases of Leceister vs. 
 Walker, 2 Camp. 251, Moor, 1 Maule fy Selwyn, 811, and was 
 recognised by the Supreme Court of New-York, in Paddock 
 vs. Salisbury, 2 Cowen, 811. 
 
 The courts of our sister states have adopted the same rule. 
 The Supreme Court of Connecticut, in Bailey vs. Hyde, 
 3 Conn. R. 463 ; that of Massachusetts, in Remington vs. Cong- 
 don, 2 Pickering, 311 ; of New Jersey, in Cook vs. Barkely 
 1 Pennington, 169, and that of Kentucky, in Galloway vs. Mid- 
 dleton, 2 Marshall, 372. In all these cases, forming one unva* 
 ried line of authorities, the true rule of the common law, and I 
 must say of common sense, is to be found in clear and distinct 
 language. That rule is, that where a plea of general issue is 
 put in, either with or without a plea of justification, any evidence 
 in mitigation of damages is admissible: where the plea of jus 
 tification is put in alone, that evidence is not admissible. And 
 yet the Supreme Court refuse to grant a new trial, because 
 "the malice is admitted on the record," and therefore this evi 
 dence in mitigation is inadmissible. Nay more, in all these 
 cases, the question of the admissibility of the evidence in miti 
 gation arose under a plea of justification. Here it was a notice, 
 and that of a qualified character. Now, in the case of Vaughan 
 vs. Havens, 8 John. R., 110, the Supreme Court of this state 
 expressly decided that " the notice forms no part of the record, 
 (I cite the words of the court,) and cannot therefore be con 
 sidered as a special plea." " The notice is intended for the 
 ease and benefit of the defendant. He may or he may not 
 rely upon it. It has been uniformly held that it is not an admis- 
 
88 
 
 sion of the matters charged in the declaration. The plaintiff 
 is bound, notwithstanding the notice, to prove the facts alleged 
 in the declaration." The notice here spoken of, like the one in 
 this cause, was a notice of justification in an action of slander ; 
 and yet, notwithstanding the strong and emphatic language of 
 the court in that case, the same court now holds that a notice is 
 a part of the record, and an admission of malice one of the 
 material averments in the declaration. 
 
 I forbear all further comment upon the decision on this point 
 in the cause. 
 
 It formed another objection on the part of the defendants to 
 the judge s charge to the jury, that the jury was told that " the 
 evidence of the plaintiff s character for intemperance was not 
 admissible in mitigation of damages, unless of the same quality 
 and degree charged in the libel," and this was reiterated to them 
 in the morning when they came into court for further and more 
 explicit directions. 
 
 The character of the plaintiff for temperance had been at 
 tacked for the injury sustained, or likely to be sustained, from 
 that attack, he had brought his action. His character, therefore, 
 for temperance became the subject of consideration in estima 
 ting the damages, unless it is contended, that a man of infamous 
 character is entitled to the same damages for any imputation 
 upon his name as a person of unimpeachable reputation. 
 
 What the judge at the circuit meant by * general character 
 of the same quality and degree," is explained in the next sen 
 tence of his charge. For instance, he says, " the defendants 
 cannot be permitted to say that the plaintiff was drunk, and an 
 object of loathing and disgust at a specific time, and then to 
 diminish the damages by proving him to be generally reputed 
 to be addicted to the free use of spirituous liquors, and often 
 exhilarated by them." The doctrine of the judge therefore is, 
 that if a man be charged with being dead drunk ; a general 
 habit of staggering drunkenness shall not be deemed a reason 
 for mitigating the damages. In all the different degrees of in 
 temperance, that of booziness half seas over staggering 
 drunk beastly drunk, and dead drunk : In speaking of a per- 
 
so 
 
 son m that situation, you must be careful to graduate your ex 
 pressions precisely to his general habit. A slight exaggeration 
 of the degree will expose you to as fearful a retaliation as if, 
 like Shylock in exacting the penalty of your bond, you had cut 
 deeper than your pound of flesh. Is this reconcileable either 
 with law or reason ? For what are the jury called upon to give 
 damages ? For the injury done to the plaintiff s character for 
 temperance and sobriety. If this be bad, no matter in what 
 degree, it is a subject of consideration with the jury in estima 
 ting the damages ; not only because the character of the plain 
 tiff was injured by his own misconduct, but because if the 
 plaintiff was at all addicted to the use of ardent spirits in excess, 
 the defendants would naturally ascribe his extraordinary ap 
 pearance and behaviour at the time alluded to, to intemperance. 
 Their motives, therefore, would be shown to be free from ma- 
 iice, which, where it does exist, is universally admitted to be a 
 good ground for aggravated damages. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable, and it adds to the force of this 
 exception, that notwithstanding this direction of the judge to 
 the jury, he had previously prevented the defendants from ask 
 ing a witness (E. J. Roberts) on cross-examination, " How often 
 he had seen the plaintiff intoxicated, and to what degree." 
 Thus preventing the defendant on one hand from inquiring into 
 the degree of intemperance in which the plaintiff habitually 
 indulged, and then on the other hand charging the jury, that 
 unless his general character for intemperance was of the same 
 degree with that charged in the libel, it was not admissible in 
 mitigation of damages. The striking injustice done to the de 
 fendants by these decisions was so manifest, that the Supreme 
 Court did not attempt to sustain the judge s charge at the circuit, 
 but assumed a technical ground for the exclusion of this testi 
 mony. Whether this new ground be more tenable, we shall 
 now examine. The Supreme Court in its decision admits, that 
 the character of the plaintiff is a proper subject of inquiry, but 
 denies that any examination ought to take place into his cha 
 racter for temperance. Inquiry, says the court, may be made 
 into his general moral character, but not into his character for 
 
90 
 
 any particular quality. This extraordinary proposition, ad 
 vanced I venture to say for the first time in a court of justice, 
 is not only contrary to the ordinary practices, but also to the 
 plainest principles. The very inquiry of the jury is concerning 
 the character of the plaintiff for temperance, and for nothing 
 else. 1st. Because his character in that particular had been 
 attacked, and it was the duty of the jury to ascertain how much 
 it had been injured. 
 
 2dly. Because the evidence would tend to rebut the presump 
 tion of malice. 
 
 The court, however, carried away by some idea concerning 
 general character, which I must confess I cannot comprehend, 
 determined that all inquiry into his character for temperance 
 was inadmissible as if in an action by a female for a libel 
 stigmatizing her as a prostitute, the defendant should be pro 
 hibited from any inquiry into her character for chastity, but 
 confined to an investigation of her general character, excluding 
 that particular. Such are the reasons which induce the defend 
 ants to ask a new trial on that branch of the case touching the 
 measure of damages, and it is but seldom that a case presenting 
 a greater violation of principle has been brought before this 
 court for supervision. The defendants complain, that great 
 injustice has been done them in the charge to the jury, and that 
 several novel and extraordinary principles have been advanced 
 in this cause, and all militating against their defence. On that 
 account we ask a new trial, but not on that account alone. 
 These reasons all refer to an injury affecting the defendants 
 personally, but there were other principles advanced at this 
 trial touching the freedom of political discussion, compared 
 with which the doctrines I have already commented upon sink 
 into insignificance. These principles strike directly at the free 
 dom of the press, and practically place it at the mercy of the 
 judges, and I know I speak the sentiments of my clients when 
 I say, that more on account of what they deem a violence per 
 petrated upon the cause of freedom and upon our liberal insti 
 tutions, than because of the injustice done to themselves, (though 
 that is not trivial,) they have deemed it their duty to resist this 
 
91 
 
 judgment to the last, and not to submit to it, until it is declared 
 to be the law of the land by the court of final resort. At the 
 trial of this cause, the jury were told that the question of malice 
 was a legal inference, and it forms the third point in the case 
 presented to this court, that the question of malice was not sub 
 mitted upon all the evidence as a question of fact for the deci 
 sion of the jury. 
 
 To prevent any misapprehension, as to the principles for 
 which we contend, I shall submit them to the court in the shape 
 of distinct propositions. 
 
 1st. Where the subject matter of the publication is such that 
 no good motive can be assigned, malice is necessarily inferred. 
 
 2d. Where public motives are assignable for the publication, 
 malice then becomes a doubtful question ; and whether it is to 
 be inferred or not, is a question of fact for the decision of the 
 jury. 
 
 3d. When a publication is made concerning the official con 
 duct of a public officer, good motives, and probable cause for 
 believing it to be true, furnish a good defence to an action for 
 libel. 
 
 The last of these propositions may be deemed somewhat 
 novel, and I am free to admit that it has not been distinctly 
 sanctioned by the courts, either of England or in this state ; but 
 it should be also recollected that this question has never before 
 been distinctly raised in our courts, and I intend to show that, 
 on the law of political libel, the courts of England do not fur 
 nish a safe rule for the tribunals of the United States. 
 
 It is true that, by a provision of the Constitution of the state 
 of New- York, the common law of England is adopted as the 
 law of the state. But this adoption was never intended to ex 
 tend to all the crudities and absurdities growing out of the feudal 
 system, and entirely inconsistent with the institutions of this 
 country. It was, indeed, an adoption of its principles as a body 
 of jurisprudence, but when any of these principles are found to 
 be inconsistent with our own institutions, they are either ex 
 pressly or silently abrogated. The courts do not acknowledge 
 the principle, that the executive can do no wrong, or that the 
 
93 
 
 legislature is omnipotent, and yet these are principles of the 
 common law. They are, however, repugnant to the spirit of 
 our institutions, and the courts therefore reject them. 
 
 This qualifying principle must be carried with us in the 
 examination of any doctrine of the British courts, not sanctioned 
 by our own courts, and relative to the political concerns of 
 society. It must especially be applied in all discussions of the 
 law of libel. A law which, protecting as it does private cha 
 racter, also limits and defines the freedom of the press, the great 
 instrument of reform in the science of government. 
 
 What then, 1 may ask, is the common law of libel ? It is a 
 legal principle aiming at the protection of character against 
 malicious attacks. The principle, however, does not go to the 
 extent of declaring, that all publications concerning private 
 character are libellous ; nor even that all false publications con 
 cerning private character are libellous. 
 
 There are things more highly valued by the law, than even 
 the exemption of individuals from untrue aspersions of their 
 good name. 
 
 Some of the dearest interests of society depend upon free 
 discussion ; and the law, wisely looking to the higher interest, 
 does not concede to individuals any reparation for injuries to 
 their characters sustained in these discussions. In general, in 
 dividuals are liable for written publications affecting private 
 character, provided they be untrue : but where the public has 
 an interest in the discussion of the subject matter of the publi 
 cations, they are then liable only for what is malicious as well 
 as false. The malicious intent then becomes an averment, 
 which the plaintiff must prove. It is always a necessary and 
 material averment ; but in general the jury are at liberty to 
 infer it from the falsehood of the publication. In this class of 
 publications, however, the proof of intent devolves upon the 
 plaintiff, and is one of the preliminary objects of inquiry on the 
 part of the jury. When that is established, or when grounds 
 for them to adopt such an inference have been laid, it then be 
 comes necessary for the defendants to prove the truth of the 
 publication. Malice is never, as the judge asserted at the trial, 
 
98 
 
 an inference of law, but always a question of fact, and a mate 
 rial averment. In 1 C kitty s Plead., 226, it is said, that where 
 the law intends or infers a fact, no averment is necessary. The 
 same doctrine is laid down by Lord Coke, Inst., 780. If, there 
 fore, malice were a legal inference, no averment would be ne 
 cessary. It may, indeed, be an inevitable inference from the 
 circumstances, but it may also be a doubtful question, and the 
 defendants were entitled to have the decision of the jury upon 
 that point. Where no good motives can be assigned for the 
 publication, the duty of the jury is plain. They then only in 
 quire whether it be true or false, because if false it is malicious. 
 But where public motives can be easily assigned for the publi 
 cation, the law then requires the jury to inquire not only con 
 cerning its truth, but also into the motive of the defendants in 
 making the publication. If it be false, the defendant is not 
 necessarily to be condemned. He may have been mistaken, 
 and the law will not condemn him when giving information, in 
 a matter about which the public is interested in obtaining infor 
 mation, for an error in judgment. It concedes this much to 
 human fallibility, and only condemns for what is wilfully or 
 maliciously false. The intent then becomes the criterion of 
 guilt or innocence, and whether the libel be true or false, if 
 published without malice, and in good faith, the defendant is 
 justified. 
 
 We contend that this is invariably the rule, where the public 
 is interested in the subject matter of the communication. By 
 reference to adjudicated cases, both in this country and in Eng 
 land, the court will find this proposition to be fully established. 
 In the case of Weatherstone vs. Hawkins, 1 Term. R., 110, 
 which was an action brought by a servant against the master 
 for giving him a bad character ; the court decided that in order 
 to sustain that action, it was necessary not only that the state 
 ment made by the master should be untrue, but that the plaintiff 
 should prove it to have been made with a malicious intent. 
 
 So, too, in discussing the character of a person applying for 
 admission into a volunteer corps, a communication to the com 
 mittee of election must be shown to have been made from a 
 
94 
 
 malicious motive. Its falsity is not sufficient. Barband vs. 
 Hookham, 5 Esp. R., 109. 
 
 The same doctrine is laid down in the case of Hare vs. Mel- 
 ler, 3 Leon, 138, where a statement was made in a complaint to 
 the Queen : in Lake vs. King, 1 Saund., 131, where it was made 
 in a petition to the House of Commons : in Ashley vs. Younge, 
 2 Burr., 810, in a course of judicial proceedings : in Hodgson 
 vs. Scarlett, 1 Bairn, fy Aid., 239, where it was made by a coun 
 sel in the discharge of his duty ; and in Benton vs. Worley, 
 4 Bibb., 38, in an application to justice for a warrant. 
 
 The courts of the United States have repeatedly recognised 
 this principle. In Jarvis vs. Hatteway, 3 John. R., 180, the 
 Supreme Court of this state held, that a statement made in pro 
 ceedings in a course of church discipline was not libellous, 
 except malicious as well as false. The same doctrine was held 
 in Thorn vs. Blanchard, 5 John., 508, respecting a petition to 
 council of appointment, to remove plaintiff from his office ; and, 
 by the Supreme Court of Penn., in Gray vs. Pentland, 4 Serg. 
 fy Rawle, 420, respecting an affidavit sent to governor as to the 
 official misconduct of plaintiff, who held his appointment from 
 the governor ; and in Fairman vs. Ives, 7 Serg. fy Lowber, 221, 
 where the libel was in a petition to the Secretary of War, ac 
 cusing a subordinate officer of not paying his debts. The prin 
 ciple, indeed, is recognised in its broadest extent, that in an 
 application for relief to the proper authority, the charge is not 
 libellous unless it is both malicious and false, and malice must 
 be proved by the plaintiff. In addition to the cases above cited, 
 the court will find the same doctrine sanctioned in 12 Coke, 104 ; 
 Cro. Eliz., 230 ; Andr., 229 ; 3 Camp., 296; 1 Binney, 178 ; 
 2 Pickering, 314 ; 3 Taunt., 456; 1 Sir Wm. Black., 386; 
 4 Esp.R., 191. 
 
 In all these cases, forming an uninterrupted current of au 
 thorities, it was held, that where the public is interested in the 
 subject matter of the communication, the inquiry is not merely 
 whether the publication be true, but, if false, whether it were 
 published from malicious motives. The plaintiff was held 
 bound to prove the malicious intent. The jury were directed 
 
95 
 
 to inquire whether the defendant intended to serve the public, 
 or merely to injure the plaintiff; whether the motive was public 
 or malicious ; and if they found that it was published with a 
 belief in its truth : the inference of malice being rebutted, they 
 were directed to acquit the defendant. 
 
 In criminal prosecutions for political libels, it has indeed been 
 held by the English courts that malice was a legal inference ; 
 and it is from that source that the honourable judge who tried 
 this cause derived the doctrine then advanced by him. But this 
 principle has not been asserted even in England in civil suits ; 
 and if it had been, I am prepared to show that the law of England 
 on the subject of political libels is not and never ought to be the 
 law of this country. 
 
 In civil actions of this class, the motive has been even there 
 held to be an essential inquiry for the jury, and not, as the judge 
 here called it, a legal inference. The jury are directed to de 
 cide upon the question of malice, and not, as they were here 
 repeatedly told, to consider it as a question of law. In this case 
 the question of malice was in effect excluded from the consider 
 ation of the jury ; and if they might have inferred that the pub 
 lication could have been made without malice, the charge was 
 incorrect. 
 
 It is unnecessary for us to show, that such an inference might 
 have been drawn. Happily the charge of the judge furnishes 
 us with satisfactory evidence of the sincerity and good faith of 
 the defendants in making this publication, where he tells the jury 
 that entire credit is to be given to the statements of all the wit 
 nesses ; although those of the defendants could not be believed 
 without admitting their justification to be completely made out. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to go into detail, to prove this case to 
 belong to that class, where the public is interested in the subject 
 matter of the publication. It was concerning the conduct of a 
 public officer while discharging his official duties, and it accused 
 him of what ought to have deprived him of the support of the 
 people. His conduct, supposing this charge to have been true, 
 degraded his office, and was offensive to decency. It was a 
 public duty therefore to communicate it to his constituents 
 
96 
 
 throughout the state. The motive might have been a public 
 one as well as malicious, and the defendants were debarred 
 from their legal rights in having that question withdrawn from 
 the jury. 
 
 The doctrine, that malice is an inference of law, is drawn 
 from the English criminal law concerning libels ; and although 
 in the government prosecutions for political libels, precedents in 
 abundance may be found in which this principle is advanced, I 
 shall contend that, that branch of English jurisprudence was never 
 adopted in this country; that it is inconsistent with the character 
 of our institutions ; and that the general principle of the common 
 law, that publications concerning subjects affecting the public in 
 terest are not libellous unless malicious, applies here to publica 
 tions made with the intention of communicating in good faith in 
 formation to the public concerning the official conduct of a public 
 officer ; that in all such publications the intent is a material ques 
 tion for the consideration of the jury a question of fact, and 
 not a legal inference. 
 
 The law concerning libels is not to be found in the earlier law 
 books. It is intimately connected with the advance of society, 
 and may be said to depend upon the progress of civilization. It 
 originated in the aspirations of the people for freedom, and to 
 obtain a greater share in the government than they had formerly 
 enjoyed. When these movements became obnoxious to the 
 ruling powers, they directed their attention to the subject, and 
 suppressed political discussion without ceremony. 
 
 Shortly after the introduction of printing into England, we 
 find the Star Chamber established : As if this formidable tri 
 bunal, so hostile to freedom, and the abolition of which was its 
 first triumph, was especially instituted to control the press. 
 How government at first exercised its power in repressing 
 political libels we may learn from Lord Bacon s History of 
 Henry VII. In speaking of Lord Stanley s execution, this 
 great philosopher, who, with all his sagacity, did not fully appre 
 ciate the rights of the commonalty, or the power of the press, 
 says, " Hereupon presently came forth swarms and vollics of 
 libels, which are the gusts of liberty of speech restrained and 
 
 
97 
 
 the females of sedition, containing bitter invectives and slanders 
 against the king and some of the council ; for the contriving 
 and dispersing whereof, Jive mean persons were caught up and 
 executed" In this summary manner was the offence of libel 
 ling the government punished under the Tudors ; and although 
 under the Stuarts the form of a trial was gone through, the 
 proceedings were fully as subversive of the principles of free 
 dom and justice. 
 
 During the reigns of James and Charles, as we are informed 
 by Hume, (certainly no advocate for the liberal side of the 
 question,) any book commenting upon the conduct or ordi 
 nances of the monarch was deemed libellous, and its authors 
 brought before the Star Chamber for punishment. How that 
 tribunal punished them, and what respect was paid by its mem 
 bers for civil rights, when they came in collision with the pre 
 rogatives of government, we can learn in the civil war and in 
 the overthrow of the monarchical government brought about 
 by their iniquitous judgments. 
 
 Even under the commonwealth, a government which rather 
 exemplified the triumph of a party, than the prevalence of 
 liberal principles, although this court was abolished, the restric 
 tions on the press were confined, and a censorship was estab 
 lished, which produced from Milton his celebrated and most 
 eloquent essay in favour of unlicensed printing. An essay from 
 which I shall have occasion hereafter to quote, as high authority 
 illustrating and enforcing the principles advanced in this cause. 
 
 The restoration of the Stuarts did not augment the freedom 
 of the press, and after this event the state prosecutions for libels 
 against the government begin to appear in the reports of the 
 common law courts. The first case to which I shall refer is 
 that of John Twynn, who was executed in 1663, shortly after 
 the Restoration, for publishing " that when the magistrates pre 
 vent judgment, the people are bound to execute judgment with 
 out and upon them." 
 
 In 1680 we find the courts advancing the doctrine laid down 
 by the honourable judge at the trial of this cause, and as this 
 seems to be the origin of this doctrine, (and certainly it is not 
 
 M 
 
98 
 
 of ttodern origin.) it will not be amiss to refer particularly to 
 the case. It was at the trial of one Henry Carr, for a libel 
 ridiculing the Jesuits, before Chief Justice Scroggs, that corrupt 
 and unprincipled minion of power. This instrument of the 
 crown then told the jury, that they had no power to judge of the 
 intent, and that (I read from hia charge, 7 St. Trials, 1 127,) " as 
 for these words, illicite, maliciose, unlawful ; I must recite what 
 all the judges of England have declared under their hands: 
 When, by the king s command, we were to give in our opinion, 
 what was to be done in point of the regulation of the press: 
 we did all subscribe, that to print or publish any newspaper or 
 pamphlet of news whatsoever, is illegal ; that it is a manifest 
 intent to the breach of the peace, and they may be proceeded 
 against by law for an illegal thing. Suppose now that this 
 thing i& not scandalous, what then ? If there had been no re 
 flection in this book at all, yet it is illicite, and the author ought 
 to be convicted for it. And that is for a public notice to all 
 people, and especially printers and booksellers, that they ought 
 to print no book or pamphlet of news whatsoever without au 
 thority. So as he is to be convicted for it as a thing illicite 
 done, not having authority." "If you find him guilty and say 
 what he is guilty of, we will judge whether the thing imports 
 malice or no." 1th St. Tr. 1127. 
 
 After this charge, in which the jury are repeatedly told that 
 they have no concern with the question of malice, they retired, 
 and in an hour after brought in a verdict of guilty. Whereupon 
 they received from the lips of this immaculate judge, this high 
 commendation, " you have done like honest men." And his 
 worthy coadjutor, the then Recorder of London, Sir George 
 Jeffries, replied, " they have done like honest men." 
 
 In this case is to be found the origin of the doctrine, which 
 the honourable judge who tried this cause laid down as a rule 
 for the jury, and we are willing that it should have all the weight 
 due to its antiquity, and to its pure and venerable origin. Some 
 thing, however, had now been gained in England by the efforts 
 of the Presbyterians and Puritan whigs. Men were no longer 
 caught up and executed. The Star Chamber was abolished, 
 
99 
 
 and libellers were brought before the courts of common law. 
 The crown, as before, was still hostile to the press, and with a 
 view of keeping it in a state of complete control, the doctrine 
 that malice was a legal inference was invented, as a substitute 
 for mere arbitrary will and power. Juries were told to find 
 guilty upon proof of publishing, and the courts would then -de 
 termine whether malice was imported. 
 
 Juries, however, would not always acquiesce in this doctrine ; 
 and in the celebrated case of the seven bishops, they took upon 
 themselves to determine the question of malice, and acquitted 
 the defendants. The conflict now between the court and the 
 jury, had fairly commenced. The judges, always striving to 
 retain the power of determining the real question at issue in libel 
 prosecutions, i. e. the guilty or malicious intention of the defend 
 ants, and the juries generally acquiescing, but occasionally, in 
 matters where the public mind was highly excited, acquitting, in 
 spite of the directions of the judges. In this contest, although 
 the destined victims of arbitrary power would sometimes be 
 protected, it was always with an effort ; and in the natural 
 course of events, they were sacrificed to the power of govern 
 ment. 
 
 Thus, in 1682, we find Thompson, Paine, and Farewell convict 
 ed and punished for publishing, that Sir Edmondbury Godfrey 
 had murdered himself; it then being an object with the alarm 
 ists to make the nation believe that he was murdered by the 
 Jesuits. 
 
 So, too, in 1693, after the revolution by which the English 
 people flattered themselves their liberties were secured, Wm. 
 Anderton was executed for a libel. 12 St. Tr. 1246. 
 
 In 1719 Littleton Powys took occasion, in his charge to the 
 grand juries at the assizes, to express his opinion, and that of his 
 brethren, concerning "the base libels and seditious papers, whose 
 number had become intolerable," and respecting which he de 
 clared " that the government would not be at the trouble of 
 inquiring after the authors, but would consider keep er sof coffee 
 houses responsible for what were found there." 
 
 In 1729, at the trial of John Clark, who was only a pressman, 
 
100 
 
 and in 1731, at the trial of Richard Franklin, the publisher of 
 the Craftsman, the same doctrine as to the malicious intent was 
 reiterated, and the jury were told that it was a legal inference, 
 which it was the province of the court to make, and that they 
 had nothing to do with it. 
 
 At the same time, efforts were made to introduce the English 
 law of libel into this country. In 1735, John P. Zenger, who 
 then published a weekly journal in the city of New- York, was 
 prosecuted by information for a libel upon the government of 
 the province. Great exertions were made by the government 
 to procure a conviction, and two respectable counsel were struck 
 from the roll for signing his exceptions. All evidence of the 
 truth of his publication was rejected by the court ; but the 
 counsel for the defendant contended, that the jury might find a 
 verdict for the defendant from their own knowledge of the truth 
 of the publications. This they did do, in defiance of the charge 
 of the court, and thus ended the first attempt to introduce the 
 English law concerning political libels into this country. 
 
 In 1752, another contest took place in England, between the 
 court and the jury, respecting Wm. Owen, who was prosecuted 
 for a libel upon the House of Commons, and the jury acquitted the 
 defendant, although the proof of publication was clear. 18. St. 
 Tr. 1828. The court catechised the jury upon their bringing 
 in the verdict, but they adhered to it. " Upon which, (as the 
 report has it,) the court broke up, and there was a prodigious 
 shout in the hall." This was the third contest, in which the jury 
 prevailed. The first was in the case of Bushnel), and the second 
 in that of the seven bishops. 
 
 The elements of a greater conflict, however, now were gather 
 ing. The movements of the ministry in reference to this country, 
 then in a state of colonial dependence, were only indications 
 of the spirit which animated the councils of the government, and 
 of its hostility to civil freedom. The same feeling which urged 
 our ancestors to resistance, animated the whigs of England, and 
 caused violent domestic parties. Wilkes attacked the ministers 
 in the North Briton. Junius overwhelmed them with invective, 
 denunciation, and sarcasm, in the Daily Advertiser ; and after 
 
 
101 
 
 prostrating the servants of the crown, he laid his sacrilegious 
 hands upon the Lord s anointed himself. This bold attack ex 
 posed the publishers and sellers of the celebrated letter to the 
 king to state prosecutions for libels. 
 
 John Almon, a bookseller, was first brought to trial in Middle 
 sex, where the jurors were more under the influence of the crown 
 than in London. Defendant did not know of the publication, 
 but the doctrine of the judges as to intention prevailed, and the 
 defendant was found guilty. John Miller was next tried before 
 a London jury, and the defendant s counsel contended that they 
 were to pass upon the intent of the defendant, but Lord Mans 
 field told them that the intent, malice, &c., were mere formal 
 words, " mere inference of law, with which the jury were not 
 to concern themselves." " They were only to decide upon the 
 fact of publication, and the meaning of the inuendoes." The 
 jury, however, thought otherwise, and acquitted the defendant, to 
 the great joy of the popular party. 20. St. Tr. 894. 
 
 The same doctrine was advanced in the very words I have 
 just used, in the trial of Woodfall, the printer of the letter ; and 
 in this case the jury gave in a verdict of " guilty of printing 
 and publishing only." 2b. 899. In this last case, a motion was 
 made for arrest of judgment by the defendant s counsel, and a 
 motion for judgment by the counsel for the crown. The court 
 ordered a venire de novo, but the cause was never again tried. 
 Ib. 921. 
 
 These decisions produced great excitement in England. The 
 causes were considered, and justly considered, as trials of 
 strength between the great political parties of the day ; the one 
 endeavouring to augment the powers of government ; the other 
 striving to restrain them within the limits of the constitution. 
 This great contest, of which the elements had long before been 
 gathering, was now at its crisis. The government aimed, by the 
 stamp act and taxation bills, to reduce the North American colo 
 nists to a state of absolute vassalage, and to crush the opposition 
 at home by a course of measures, of which the prosecutions for 
 libels, and secretary of state s warrants, formed a part. These 
 measures were all features of the same policy, and indicated the 
 same despotic parentage. 
 
102 
 
 The liberties of the Anglo-Saxon race were at stake, and 
 fortunately for the cause of civil freedom, its defence was in 
 trusted to men of uncompromising character, of clear minds, 
 and undaunted resolution. Though Lords Mansfield, Bute and 
 North, aided by the whole power of the British crown, threat 
 ened to crush all who thwarted their will ; the friends of Eng 
 lish liberty were encouraged in their resistance by Camden 
 Chatham, and Burke, whose principles were also enforced by 
 the American Congress. 
 
 The warrants of the Secretary of State were adjudged illegal 
 in the case of Rochford ads. Sayre. The doctrine of the courts 
 respecting libels, although destined to undergo a more pro. 
 tracted discussion, met with a similar fate. 
 
 The principles advanced from the bench, in the trials of 
 Woodfall and the other printers, immediately became the sub 
 ject of parliamentary animadversion. 
 
 Chatham commented upon them with great severity in his 
 speech, relative to the Middlesex election, and stigmatized them 
 "as contrary to law, repugnant to pratice, and injurious to the 
 dearest rights of the people." Lord Mansfield, who was then 
 present in the House of Lords, was compelled by this public 
 attack to enter upon a defence of his conduct. A debate ac 
 cordingly occurred in the House of Lords, in which Lord 
 Camden, the former Chancellor, took part. The remarks of 
 this learned and upright judge are too pointed respecting the 
 doctrine in question, to be suppressed. (I read them from 
 Dodsley s Annual Register for 1771, p. 27.) He said, that, 
 * having passed through the highest departments of the law, he 
 was particularly interested, and even tied down by duty, to 
 urge the making of the inquiry into the conduct of the judges : 
 that if it should appear that any doctrines had been inculcated, 
 contrary to the known and established principles of the consti 
 tution, he would expose and point them out, and convince the 
 authors to their faces of the errors they had been guilty of: 
 that he could not, from his profession, but be sensibly con 
 cerned for the present disreputable state of our law courts, and 
 sincerely to wish that some effectual method might be taken to 
 
103 
 
 recover their former lustre and dignity ; and that he knew of 
 no method so effectual as the proposed inquiry. If the spirit of 
 the times has fixed any unmerited stigma upon the character of 
 the judges, this will purify them, and restore them to the esteem 
 and confidence of their country ; but if the popular rumours 
 have unhappily been too well founded, we owe it to ourselves 
 and to posterity, to drive them indignantly from the seats which 
 they dishonour, and to punish them in an exemplary manner for 
 their malversation." 
 
 A motion was also made at the same time, in the House of 
 Commons, proposing an inquiry into the conduct of the judges ; 
 and one of the specific charges brought against them was, that 
 they had claimed the right to judge of the intention, which doc 
 trine was stigmatized as illegal and tyrannical. This motion 
 was resisted by the ministerial party, who prevailed on a divi 
 sion, 184 against 76, for the proposed inquiry. 
 
 The effect of these animadversions was, to produce a notice 
 on the part of Lord Mansfield , for a call of the House of Lords on 
 the following Monday on a matter of importance, which he 
 had to communicate to them. It was generally supposed that 
 this call was preparatory to a free and open discussion of the 
 offensive doctrines, which he intended to bring on in the House 
 of Lords. But upon the appointed day Lord Mansfield shrunk 
 from the discussion, and merely informed the House that he 
 had left a paper with the clerk, containing the unanimous opin 
 ion of the Court of King s Bench in the case of Woodfall, for 
 the perusal of any one. 
 
 It was then asked if the paper was to be entered upon the 
 journals of the House, to which a reply in the negative was 
 given ; and no motion being made by Lord Mansfield, Lord 
 Camden stated to the House, that he was ready to maintain that 
 the doctrine laid down as the judgment of the court was not 
 the law of England, and pressed upon Lord Mansfield to appoint 
 an early day for the discussion. 
 
 This challenge, however, was declined, and the courts con 
 tinued in theory to assert the old doctrine, but not often ven 
 turing to enforce in practice, until Mr. Fox brought forward his 
 declaratory act, repudiating the principle as slavish, and incon- 
 
 
104 
 
 sistent with the spirit of the common law. In all the discussions 
 relating to the passage of this act in parliament, the whig 
 leaders, Fox, Erskineand Bearcroft, contended that the intention 
 ought to be submitted to the jury as a matter of fact. Lord 
 Camden said it was always a question of fact. Lord Lough- 
 borough said that it had always been his practice to submit the 
 whole matter in libel suits to a jury, and Pitt admitted that the 
 law ought to be so. The act finally passed, and the question 
 was decided in favour of the liberty of the press. The malice 
 or intention of the libeller was formally declared to be a ques 
 tion of fact, and not an inference of law. 
 
 While this concession to freedom was thus slowly and by 
 degrees wrung from the government at home, circumstances 
 had prepared the way on this side of the Atlantic for a more 
 general conflict, resulting in a complete and decisive triumph. 
 The resistance of our ancestors, which at first aimed at securing 
 to them only the privileges of Englishmen, eventuated in pro 
 curing to them and their posterity complete enjoyment of the 
 rights of men. The British Colonies were separated from the 
 mother country, and united under an independent government, 
 republican and representative in its character. They adopted 
 in the main, the laws and institutions of the parent kingdom, 
 but made one great and material alteration. This variance, 
 which lies at the root of the question I am discussing, resulted 
 from the difference in the character and spirit of the two go 
 vernments. In Great Britain it is held to be a maxim, that the 
 king can do no wrong. The public officers throughout the 
 kingdom are his instruments, and in some sort represent his 
 authority ; and though they are not vested with the same im 
 munity, it is impossible to disregard the tenderness manifested 
 by the law for public dignities, and their freedom from all con 
 stitutional responsibility. This exemption from political re 
 sponsibility is a principle pervading the whole constitution. 
 The king is incapable of doing wrong. Parliament is omnipo 
 tent, and the judiciary in fact independent of all but the execu 
 tive government. In this state of things the press cannot be 
 free. It is at most merely tolerated, and unless the government 
 
105 
 
 means to foster an instrument, which must ultimately overthrow 
 it, it acts wisely in thus limiting its power. In this country an 
 entirely opposite principle prevails. The government was 
 established by the people and for the people. It is founded on 
 the great maxim, of rendering all public officers accountable 
 to public opinion. This principle of accountability pervades 
 all our political institutions. The legislature is accountable to 
 the people : The executive to the legislature, and also to the 
 people : The judiciary to the legislature, and indirectly to the 
 people. Every officer intrusted with power is accountable 
 either directly or indirectly. At periodical elections held in 
 various parts of the country, this delegated power is laid down, 
 and is either intrusted to new servants, or to the old ones whose 
 services have been satisfactory. 
 
 This arrangement of our political institutions presupposes 
 information to be communicated to the people through the press 
 concerning their public affairs. 
 
 The government is based upon public intelligence, and the 
 doctrine of accountability on the part of elected magistrates 
 mainly depends upon a free press upon a press to publish as 
 freely of public officers, as according to the common law (which 
 here is not warped to suit the views of government) it may 
 publish of private individuals what it concerns the public to 
 know, and to be held responsible only for what is maliciously, 
 as well as untruly published. 
 
 This is the great result of our revolution in government 
 reformation in public measures by means of public opinion. 
 The means of communicating information of course were in 
 tended to be free. This is the real object of that provision of 
 the constitution guarantying the freedom of the press. It meant 
 to secure the press from the power of the government, and to 
 enable it to criticise with freedom public measures, and the 
 conduct and qualifications of public officers. This was the 
 only freedom the press wanted. It was always free in Eng 
 land as to publications concerning private character, when it 
 conformed to the great principles distinguishing between pub 
 lications strictly private or personal, and those aiming to sub- 
 
106 
 
 serve the public welfare. It was shackled only so far as it 
 attempted to discuss public measures, and the conduct and 
 character of public officers. In this country, the same freedom 
 was extended to political discussions, which were no longer to 
 form an exception to the common law of libel ; but were to be 
 adjudged upon as other publications affecting reputation and 
 having the interest of the community in view, viz., to be justified 
 where the intention is justifiable ; to be condemned where it is 
 malicious. By the change in the form and character of the 
 government, the reason which made the law concerning politi 
 cal libels an exception from the common law of libel is at an 
 end ; and the maxim prevails cessat ratio cessat lex. 
 
 It forms no longer an exception, and all authority derived 
 from the common law respecting political libels, is to be rejected 
 as not applicable in this country. 
 
 The honourable judge who presided at the trial of this cause, 
 not properly appreciating the distinction, was led into a mistake, 
 and adopted the doctrine advanced in the case of Woodfall, 
 and so much censured in Parliament. The Supreme Court fell 
 into the same mistake in relying upon the case of Lewis vs. 
 Few, 5 John. That case, indeed, is not altogether applicable 
 to the point now under discussion ; inasmuch as the question 
 was brought up upon a demurrer to the evidence, where the 
 rule is, that whatever might be inferred by a jury, the court is 
 bound to infer in favour of the plaintiff*. Now we do not con 
 tend, that the jury may not infer malice from the publication 
 itself, but that it is not necessarily inferrible, and may be re 
 butted from the other circumstances ; and at all events, that it 
 is a question which the jury may decide in the negative. 
 
 The case of Lewis vs. Few, therefore, is riot in point, inas 
 much as there the court were bound to infer malice, because 
 the jury might have inferred it ; but if it were directly in point, 
 I should contend, that so far as it sustains the principle that 
 malice is not a question of fact, but a legal inference, it is to be 
 disregarded. 
 
 The authorities of the law for this country, in reference to 
 political libels, are not to be found in the decisions of English 
 
107 
 
 judges, influenced as they have generally been by the hope of 
 court favour, or fear of its frowns, and of whose fallibility and 
 arbitrary disposition you have such melancholy proofs in those 
 records of human weakness and crime, interspersed with ac 
 counts of suffering patriotism, entitled English state trials. 
 They are to be found in the expressed opinions of the eminent 
 men, who have contended in behalf of English freedom against 
 the arbitrary principles of the crown, promulgated by these 
 very judges in the acts of our revolutionary ancestors, and of 
 their successors who established our political institutions and 
 in the character and spirit of those institutions. These opinions 
 are protests against the arbitrary doctrines of the English 
 courts ; and followed up as they have been by the acts which 
 gave us liberty and an independent government, they form an 
 authority with which the technical and narrow precedents of 
 the books are not to be brought in comparison. 
 
 Milton, in his eloquent speech for an unlicensed press, asserts 
 this very doctrine for which we are now contending. Speak 
 ing of the power of the press in reforming abuses in a commu 
 nity, he says, " For this is not the liberty which we can hope, 
 that no grievance ever should arise in the commonwealth ; that, 
 let no man in this world expect; but when complaints are 
 freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is 
 the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look 
 for." And a little farther, ** Give me the liberty to know, to 
 utter, and to argue freely, according to conscience, above all 
 liberties. Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose 
 to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do in 
 juriously, by prohibiting and licensing, to misdoubt her strength. 
 Let her and falsehood grapple ; who ever knew truth put to 
 the worse in an open and free encounter ?" 
 
 This same doctrine was what Erskine contended for, through 
 out his long contest with the courts in behalf of the rights of 
 juries and the freedom of the press. 
 
 At the trial of the Dean of St. Asaph for a libel, after allu 
 ding to the controversy between the courts and juries, respect 
 ing the right of juries to judge of the intent, he says, " now 
 
108 
 
 prosecutions for libel are tried, and I hope ever will be tried, 
 with that harmony which is the beauty of our legal constitu 
 tion ; the jury preserving their independence in judging of that 
 mains animus, which is the essence of every crime, but listening 
 to the opinion of the judge upon the law and the evidence, with 
 that respect and attention which dignity, learning and honest 
 intention in a magistrate must and ought always to carry along 
 with them." 
 
 During this trial, a contest took place between this intrepid 
 advocate and Justice Buller, in consequence of the jury s wish 
 ing to give a verdict of" guilty of publishing only." 
 
 A motion was made for a new trial in the King s Bench ; and 
 in the argument on that motion, Mr. Erskine laid down these 
 distinct propositions, that " no act, abstracted from the intention 
 of the actor, is a crime." 
 
 " That where the mischievous intention cannot be collected 
 from the fact charged, because conflicting evidence is produced, 
 it then becomes a pure unmixed question of fact for the consi 
 deration of the jury." 
 
 Again, in Stockdale s case, his ground of defence was, that 
 his client s intentions were pure ; that the pamphlet was a bona 
 fide defence of Mr. Hastings ; that this singleness and purity 
 of intention afforded an excuse, even for intemperance of ex 
 pression ; that this was the question for the jury to try, and that 
 they might safely acquit his client on that ground, for that his 
 principles of defence could not at any time, or on any occasion, 
 be applied to shield wilful libellers from punishment, and that 
 they were compatible only with honour, honesty and mistaken 
 good intention. In concluding this most eloquent and masterly 
 defence, a defence which, taken together with his argument in 
 the case of the Dean of St. Asaph, contains more sound prin 
 ciple on the law of political libel, than the collected wisdom of 
 all the judges of England, he told the jury, that the question to 
 be decided was not in any sense a question of law, but a pure 
 question of fact, to be decided upon the principles he had ad 
 vanced in his defence. 
 
 The jury retired, after receiving a very precise charge from 
 
109 
 
 Lord Kenyon, and in about two hours brought in a verdict ac 
 quitting the defendant. 
 
 These propositions of Mr. Erskine, in the case of St. Asaph, 
 were distinctly approved by Mr. Fox, in the debate on the 
 declaratory act, and he asserted, that the jury had a right to 
 decide on the intention as a matter of fact, 3d vol. Senator, 627. 
 Mr. Burke, too, asserted the same principles, in his speech on 
 Mr. DowdeswelPs motion for leave to bring in a bill settling the 
 law on this point, made in Parliament, March 7th, 1771, and he 
 further observes, that " if the intent and tendency be left to the 
 judge as legal conclusions resulting from the fact, you may de 
 pend upon it, you can have no public discussions of a public 
 measure." Sir James Mackintosh also adds his authority in 
 behalf of the same position, in language particularly applicable 
 to the case now under discussion. In his defence of Peltier, 
 who was indicted in England during the short-lived peace after 
 the treaty of Amiens, for a libel upon Napoleon, then first 
 consul, he contends that "the essence of the crime of libel con 
 sists in the malignant mind, which the publication proves, and 
 from which it flows. A jury must be convinced, before they 
 find guilty of libel, that his intention was to libel not to state 
 facts which he believed to be true." 
 
 Such are the principles held by the great leaders of the whig 
 party of England, in opposition to the arbitrary doctrines of the 
 court. The principles of our revolutionary ancestors were no 
 less clear and decided. At the commencement of the struggle, 
 when it became apparent that no compromise could take place, 
 but that their principles must be enforced, they despatched com 
 missioners to Canada, to induce that province to join the con 
 federacy. 
 
 These commissioners were directed to establish a free press 
 as one of the essential requisites, to qualify the Canadians for 
 a participation in the privileges of freedom, for which they 
 were then entering upon a war of no speedy termination. 
 
 The constitutions of the several states also afford evidence of 
 the peculiar importance of a free press, and of the views of 
 our own ancestors of the common law respecting political libels. 
 
110 
 
 The constitutions of Massachusetts and North Carolina, esta 
 blished during the contest, and even amid the din of arms, fur 
 nish strong contemporary testimony of their intentions. The 
 sixteenth article of the declaration of rights, contained in the 
 former, asserts, that the liberty of the press is essential to the 
 security of freedom in a state ; it ought not therefore to be re 
 strained in this commonwealth." The fifteenth article in the 
 constitution of the latter declares in still stronger terms, that 
 the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, 
 and therefore ought never to be restrained. 
 
 The Constitution of New-Hampshire contains the same pro 
 vision as that of Massachusetts. Those of Maryland, South 
 Carolina and Georgia, also declare the inviolable freedom of 
 the press, and the trial by jury, as theretofore enjoyed in those 
 several states, as if they meant to pointedly reprobate the con 
 duct of the English courts, in denying the right of the jury to 
 decide upon the intent in prosecutions for libels upon govern 
 ment. 
 
 The provisions in the constitutions of some of the sister states 
 are still more pointed. That of Pennsylvania, article 9, sec 
 tion 7, declares immediately after the provision relative to the 
 trial by jury, that " the printing presses shall be free to every 
 person who undertakes to examine the proceedings of the legis 
 lature, or any branch of government, and no law shall ever be 
 made to restrain the right thereof;" and after providing for the 
 admission of the truth in evidence, it authorizes the jury, upon 
 indictments for libels, to determine the law and the facts as in 
 other cases. 
 
 The constitutions of Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, 
 Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, and Mississippi, contain a similar pro 
 vision, and refer particularly to the conduct of public officers, 
 as a proper subject of privileged discussion. 
 
 The provision in the Constitution of Vermont, article 13, on 
 this subject, is as follows: the people have a right to freedom 
 of speech, and of writing and publishing their sentiments con 
 cerning the transactions of government, and therefore the free 
 dom of the press ought not to be restrained." 
 
Ill 
 
 These provisions, all declaring the freedom of the press, and 
 some pointing particularly at that subject of discussion, which 
 in England had been a prohibited topic, i. e., the proceedings 
 of government, and the conduct of public officers, furnish 
 strong reasons, almost amounting to demonstration, of the abro 
 gation in this country of the distinction which the judges of the 
 court had so long endeavoured to preserve in England. 
 
 If the character of our institutions was not in itself a suffi 
 cient argument in favour of a free discussion of the conduct of 
 public men ; those declarations, by the founders of our political 
 institutions, inserted in the constitutions themselves, plainly 
 indicate, that their idea of a free press was one which freely 
 discussed the measures and conduct of the officers of govern 
 ment, and that they intended expressly to reject the doctrine of 
 the King s Bench as to malice being a legal inference. 
 
 The course of legislation sanctioned under these constitutions 
 has been in conformity with this idea, and strongly illustrates 
 the tendency of our institutions to still further enlarge the free 
 dom of political discussion. The attempt which was made 
 during the administration of John Adams, to bring libels against 
 the federal authorities under the jurisdiction of the federal 
 courts, resulted, as we well know, in the overthrow of the 
 dominant party. In that contest the legislature of Virginia 
 took the lead, and headed by Madison and Jefferson, after pro 
 testing against the constitutionality of the sedition act, declared 
 that " Truth, if left to herself, will prevail. That she is the 
 proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to 
 fear from the conflict, unless disarmed of her natural weapons, 
 free argument and debate." 
 
 The legislature of Pennsylvania at a subsequent period, 1809, 
 passed an act abolishing all criminal prosecutions for publica 
 tions concerning the government, or investigating the conduct 
 of public officers, and leaving individuals who had been injured 
 by such publications to their civil remedies. 
 
 So, too, in New- York, when in CroswelPs case, in a moment 
 of high party excitement, part of the judges yielding to that 
 propensity so often found in mere lawyers, to regard authorities 
 
112 
 
 rather than principles, determined that the truth could not be 
 given in evidence, in defence of a political libel ; although they 
 were prevented by an equal division of the bench, from intro 
 ducing that monstrous doctrine into the body of American 
 jurisprudence, the legislature determined that no doubt should 
 exist on that subject, and by a declaratory act declared the truth 
 to be a proper and legal defence. 
 
 Massachusetts has established the same doctrine, by a decla 
 ratory act, passed 1827, and has further declared that a plea in 
 justification shall not be deemed evidence of the publication, or 
 of malicious intent, even though the defendant fail to prove his 
 plea. 
 
 From this minute and perhaps tedious examination of the 
 history of the law respecting political libels, it appears, that in 
 England this doctrine of which we complain was introduced 
 into the common law by the influence of the government ; that 
 it then was at variance with, and formed an exception to the 
 common law respecting publications, in whose subject matter 
 the community was interested ; that this doctrine was always 
 complained of, and sometimes successfully resisted, as illegal ; 
 that the whigs of England, a party which was generally found 
 on the side of constitutional freedom, always protested against 
 it, and finally succeeded in triumphing over this encroachment 
 on the rights of juries; that the doctrine itself is inimical to the 
 freedom of political discussion, and inconsistent with the cha 
 racter of our government, and that in the constitutions of most 
 of our sister states, the doctrine is expressly repudiated as in 
 compatible with our system of government. Against these 
 arguments, all converging to one point, what can the learned 
 counsel for the plaintiff urge the opinions of the judges of the 
 King s Bench, in prosecutions on the part of the government for 
 political libels opinions originating in Chief Justice Scroggs, 
 and ending in Lord Mansfield. They may indeed declaim 
 against the licentiousness of the press, and of the impropriety 
 of bringing a man s foibles before the public. But it is not the 
 licentiousness, but the freedom of the press for which we con 
 tend. This vice of intemperance is not a foible, as has been 
 
113 
 
 alleged. In public men it is a crime. I do not contend for 
 a rigid and austere code, that regards all conviviality as an 
 offence against sound morals, but the vice stigmatized in the 
 publication complained of, is a great and growing evil. It saps 
 the foundation of morals, and when it shall be once tolerated 
 in our public functionaries, it will destoy the character of our 
 institutions. In some cases it may demand our forbearance, 
 and even our pity. 
 
 When a man, after devoting his talents, and expending his 
 fortune in the public service, is seen struggling in the decline of 
 life, amid embarrassments resulting from his devotion to his 
 country, deserted by the heartless flatterers who, in his day of 
 power, sued for his smiles,-^-surrounded by money dealers, and 
 merciless harpies ; who, like vultures, flock round their prey, 
 ere life and sense be gone, we cannot wonder that he should 
 seek relief from the cold ingratitude of the world, by steeping 
 his senses in forgetfulness. We mourn over the wreck of great-- 
 ness, and while we condemn his weakness, we pity and forgive 
 the infirmity of purpose, which shrinks from contemplating his 
 changed and fallen condition. 
 
 Even when men of commanding intellects retire from the 
 glorious conflict of mind, and the discharge of duties for which 
 the most gifted men, alone, are qualified to indulge in this de* 
 grading vice : when yielding to its influence, they hide their 
 shame and their infirmity in retirement, admitting the fatal 
 effects of indulgence, but still clinging, with blind infatuation, to 
 the intoxicating bowl, we may deplore while we condemn the 
 weakness of human nature, and mourn over the loss of learning 
 and genius ; but here there is nothing of vice to reprobate, ex 
 cept its weakness, and the example has no extensive and deso 
 lating influence. 
 
 But when a man of strong passions and intellect, whose prin 
 ciples render him popular, and whose political course has ele 
 vated him to power, as the favourite of his party, when such a 
 man indulges in the stimulus of the bowl, there is danger in the 
 example, lest it sanctify the vice, and render it contagious. 
 Should such a man be found in a high and prominent station 
 
 o 
 
114 
 
 where the notorious exhibition of his infirmities, must attract the 
 attention of the community, affecting the character of his con 
 stituents, not merely in the opinions of the world, but by the sure 
 though imperceptible contagion which always follows vice, 
 practised with impunity, and placed above condemnation by 
 the rank and popularity of the offender, in such a case it is the 
 task of a patriot, it is the duty of every citizen, loving his country, 
 and prizing the purity and stability of her institutions, to strip 
 the mask from vice in power, and in strong and nervous lan 
 guage, to hold up the violator of public decency, to the merited 
 scorn and indignation of society. 
 
 This is the case before the court, and we complain that the 
 jury were not permitted to pass upon the motives of the defend 
 ants in making the publication complained of, as they would 
 have been in the trial of any other libel, the subject matter of 
 which was important to the public. The repudiation of the 
 doctrines laid down at the trial of this cause is required, to re 
 store the unity and harmony of the common law. Under the 
 opposite principle, the intention then becomes, as it ought to be, 
 the criterion of guilt. If the mind is not guilty, the act is not 
 criminal. This is a maxim of the common law in all its branches. 
 
 If the publisher intend to tell the truth for justifiable purposes, 
 the law does not infer that his intention is malicious. You pro 
 hibit free discussion for all useful ends if you adopt any other 
 principle. You may indeed preserve the form ; but the vigour 
 and life of free discussion, the boldness of remark, the active 
 spirit of investigation into public abuses will have departed. 
 What indeed can be expected from writers, cowering under 
 the uplifted scourge of such a maxim ? whom no purity of in 
 tention, no singleness of purpose, nor patriotic views can save 
 from being classed and punished with the criminal libeller and 
 defamer ? No matter how strong his belief, how unsuspecting 
 his good faith ; no matter how convincing the evidence pre 
 sented to his mind ; no matter how urgent the necessity of in 
 forming the public, if his communication does not conform to the 
 evidence laid before the jury ; if his assertions do not square 
 with the conclusions of men equally fallible with himself, his 
 
115 
 
 intentions are to be deemed malicious, and himself liable to 
 punishment. It is no answer to say, let men in publishing 
 strictly adhere to the truth. It is a sufficient reply to this, that 
 it is not in conformity with the common law concerning libels 
 of this class, which makes due allowance for human fallibility. 
 If man were of a different nature, and possessed of unerring 
 judgment and sagacity, no objection could be made to thi* rule. 
 They then would know what truth was. They would not be 
 compelled to inquire with Pilate, when the Saviour of mankind 
 was arraigned before him for preaching false doctrines, what is 
 truth ? They would know, and if they erred, they would sin 
 against light arid knowledge. They would intend to libel, and 
 their intention would render them guilty. But to make it their 
 duty to speak, and to punish them for speaking what they be 
 lieve to be true, is punishing them for their fallibility, and not 
 for their guilt. It is visiting upon man what, if it be wrong, is 
 the error of his Maker. A principle like this is the essence of 
 tyranny. It loses sight of the eternal distinction between right 
 and wrong, and would be monstrous in any government. 
 
 In this government, it is fraught with the most pernicious 
 consequences. The chief subjects of political discussion in a 
 representative form of government, must be the conduct and 
 principles of those who administer it, or in other words, the 
 conduct and principles of the dominant party. So long as these 
 are examined in a fair spirit of inquiry, with the view of im 
 parting information to the public, and with honest intentions, 
 the limits of discussion cannot be extended too far. In other 
 countries, public opinion most generally acts as a check upon 
 the government, whose official interest is somewhat at variance 
 with the wishes of the people. It therefore is naturally arrayed 
 on the side of those, who are prosecuted for political offences, 
 and is a sure ally in their defence against the power of the go 
 vernment. As in England, it is the judge between the accuser 
 and the accused. But in this country, it is the source and origin 
 of political power. It stands in the double character of party 
 and judge ; and unless it can be addressed with freedom and 
 boldness on the conduct of public officers, no abuses on the 
 
116 
 
 part of those in power can be redressed. The avenue to the 
 public mind will be closed ; for who will accuse a party of doing 
 wrong, when the members of that party are to decide as jurors* 
 simply upon the truth of the accusation, without reference to 
 the motives and belief of the accuser? No reform, even in the 
 worst state of public affairs, can be effected, when such a doc 
 trine prevails in a court of law. But with a press protected in 
 the legitimate scope of its functions, by an appeal to the in 
 tegrity and uprightness of purpose characterizing its publications, 
 a majority however overwhelming can be kept in check, and 
 within constitutional bounds. An appeal to such motives, when 
 they are recognised by the law as forming a good defence, will 
 obtain a hearing even in the excitement and heat of political 
 conflicts. 
 
 On the other hand, those who administer the government are 
 protected from unbounded abuse and calumny, by requiring 
 qualities entirely incompatible with intentional falsehood. 
 
 But if the law infers malice when the charge is untrue ; if error 
 is to be the criterion of guilt, and a jury is required to decide 
 upon the truth of political publications, and not upon the motives 
 of their authors, and in so deciding, perhaps to condemn the 
 course of those whom they have elevated to power, the rights 
 of the minority will be placed at the mercy of the ruling party 
 of the day. The sacred walls of the temple of justice will re 
 sound with the clamour of faction, and the accused will be ac 
 quitted or condemned, not in conformity with the principles of 
 equity and law, but according to the excited passions and erring 
 judgment of a fallible and prejudiced jury. The only security 
 which the minority now have, or can have, against the abuses 
 of power, will be destroyed. The dominant party take posses 
 sion both of the government and of the jury box, and exercise 
 their authority without the fear of censure or control. The 
 press in effect is silenced ; and under the semblance of freedom, 
 the worst kind of despotism is introduced, the despotism of 
 faction, which sacrifices the rights of the minority according to 
 the forms of the constitution, and silences all remark, and sup 
 presses all investigation according to the forms of law. 
 
117 
 
 I am shocked to think, that a doctrine pregnant with such 
 consequences should be advanced in a court of justice in this 
 country ; and that it should now be a question in the court of 
 last resort, whether we should go back to the principles of the 
 Tudors and Stuarts to arbitrary maxims invented to suppress 
 political discussion ; or adhere to maxims which are in accord 
 ance with the just and mild spirit of the common law, when not 
 warped to subserve the designs of government. Upon these 
 maxims depend the freedom of political discussion. It cannot 
 exist where they are frowned upon ; and in the melancholy 
 history of the progress of truth upon earth, you may see their 
 violation, whenever a martyr for truth s sake was to be offered 
 upon the shrine of human error and passion. When the Saviour 
 of mankind came upon earth to promulgate the doctrines of 
 charity and peace, his intentions were not questioned by the 
 priests and rabble that called for his crucifixion ; but they de 
 manded his life because his doctrines were not true. For ages, 
 his disciples were dragged to the stake as schismatics and here 
 tics, or rather as victims to sustain the heathen superstitions, 
 which they were destined finally to overthrow. 
 
 When this Church, established by their blood, became in after 
 times corrupted through the inventions of man, seeking to 
 gratify his avarice and lust of power by the aid of religion, did 
 those who endeavoured to restore the primitive faith meet with 
 a kinder hearing or a milder fate ? No ! Other victims were 
 demanded, and the councils of Constance and the fires of Smith- 
 field afford ample evidence of our weakness and fallibility, 
 when error and truth appear as antagonists before human tri 
 bunals. Nor is it in religion alone, that error has wielded the 
 tyrant s rod, while truth has suffered the martyr s fate. Even 
 in the physical sciences she has usurped the censor s chair, and 
 condemned the humble disciples of truth to imprisonment and 
 death. 
 
 Need I name Galileo, imprisoned in the dungeons of the in 
 quisition for declaring that the sun was in the centre of the 
 solar system. That eternal truth was then deemed heresy, and 
 the Italian philosopher suffered, not for his criminal intentions, 
 
118 
 
 but for his promulgation of error? The history of politics is 
 full of the violations of this principle, and of the injustice per 
 petrated by error in the ascendant, upon the advocates of a 
 better and freer system of government ; but in all these in 
 stances, it is consoling to find that the "good old cause" has 
 constantly advanced in the opinions of mankind. Hampden, 
 when contending for the exemption of Englishmen from arbi 
 trary taxation, was condemned by the subservient judges who 
 then sat in the exchequer chamber; but in a few years the 
 judgment was reversed by the commons of England. Alger 
 non Sidney expiated his offence, for denying the divine rights 
 of the Stuarts, upon the scaffold ; but the expulsion of that ill- 
 fated family from their country, and the reversal of his attainder, 
 followed close upon his condemnation. The decision of the 
 King s Bench against the freedom of the press, in the case of 
 Woodfall, was subsequently overturned by the declaratory act 
 of Mr. Fox, passed with the almost unanimous consent of the 
 British Parliament. Such has been, in past ages, the fate of 
 all who ventured to question the conduct of those invested 
 with power, to suffer in their own persons for the success of 
 the cause ; and such will always be their fate, until courts shall 
 learn to inquire concerning the intentions of the accused, in 
 stead of setting themselves up as arbitrators between truth and 
 falsehood ; until in trials for political libels, as in trials for all 
 other offences, the intention shall be a question of fact, for the 
 decision of the jury ; until good faith, integrity of purpose, 
 and honest intentions, shall serve as a protecting shield for all 
 who are compelled to pass through the furnace of political per 
 secution. 
 
 I know that these doctrines are unpalateable to those who, 
 for the time, are invested with power. They teach them to 
 question themselves ; to doubt of their infallibility ; to examine 
 their darling prejudices ; to relinquish long established opinions; 
 to review, and even to condemn their own conduct. They re 
 quire them to listen, and sometimes to yield, to the remon 
 strances of a minority, which they are but too much inclined to 
 oppress. 
 
119 
 
 Yet with these maxims, has the principle of free political 
 discussion, that guardian genius of the rights of mankind, 
 made her way through the world, in spite of the tyranny of 
 governments and the prejudice of the governed ; against the 
 teachings of the schools, the denunciations of the pulpits, the 
 influence of the aristocracy, and the power of the crown. In 
 spite of the rack, the axe, and the bayonet, she has established 
 her dominion in the old, and extended her sway over the new 
 world. The gloom of the cloister disappeared in her light; 
 the scholastic and feudal systems, the offspring of error and 
 ignorance, fled from her glance ; the bastile and the inquisition 
 crumbled before her march ; the colonial fetters of rising em 
 pires were shaken off at her command, until she who within 
 two centuries endured imprisonment in the dungeon with 
 Galileo, and bowed her head on the scaffold with Sidney, 
 assumed the arbitrament of the claims of nations, and sat in 
 judgment on the fate of monarchs. I trust in God that this 
 triumphant career is not destined to meet with a check in this 
 country, which owes so much of its prosperity and happiness to 
 the prevalence of this principle; and that this court, possessing 
 a representation of the learning of the legal profession, happily 
 combined and tempered, through the electoral principle, with 
 the spirit of the age, will not lay its parricidal hands upon a 
 principle, to which it is indebted for its very existence. 
 
HISTORICAL VIEW 
 
 OP THE 
 
 FORMATION OF THE CONFEDERACY, 
 
 ADOPTION OP STATE CONSTITUTIONS. ARTICLES OP 
 CONFEDERATION.-LIMITS OF STATES. 
 
 AFTER the conclusion of the war of 1763, the British minis 
 ters seem to have adopted a more rigorous and uniform system 
 of government for the North American Colonies than they had 
 before been subjected to. As this ministerial project was regard 
 ed by the Americans, (to use the words of the eloquent Burke.) 
 " as a system of perfect uncompensated slavery, in which the 
 restraints of an universal internal and external monopoly were 
 joined with an universal internal and external taxation ;" they 
 prepared to resist the designs of the mother country with the 
 spirit of freemen. This determination was not a transient 
 feeling ; but a deep, enduring sentiment, pervading the whole 
 mass of society ; supplying the place of laws and government, 
 and inducing the colonists to place their persons and fortunes 
 upon the hazard of successful resistance. In order to concen 
 trate their forces, and to act in their common cause as one 
 people, the leaders of the opposition were invested with power, 
 by the primary assemblies, to represent the different provinces 
 in a Continental Congress, and to act in their behalf, for the pur 
 pose of procuring a remedy for the evils with which they were 
 threatened. 
 
 The first meeting of this body was held September 5, 1774 ; 
 and in that body twelve of the colonies were represented by 
 
122 
 
 the consent of the people. In this Congress it was determined 
 to adopt such measures of resistance to the designs of Great 
 Britain as did not necessarily imply a hostile disposition. An- 
 agreement neither to import nor consume British goods, nor to 
 export produce to Great Britain, was entered into by the dele 
 gates for themselves and their constituents, and remonstrance 
 and petition employed to avert the crisis which was manifestly 
 approaching. In these acts, and the pledges which were mu 
 tually given, both by the delegates of the several colonies, and 
 by the people in^their primary assemblies, is to be seen the germ 
 of the American Republic. 
 
 The next year, on the ever memorable 19th of April, the 
 inhabitants of Lexington and Concord, in- accordance with 
 public sentiment, and (it may be said) the tacit general under 
 standing of the colonists, in resisting the British troops, com 
 menced hostilities, and thus put the respective rights and claims 
 of the two countries upon the arbitration of war. 
 
 On the 10th of May, the delegates of the same provinces 
 met again in Congress, and formally made the cause of the pro 
 vincial troops round Boston, the cause of the colonies. They 
 acknowledged it to be their own, and prepared to prosecute it 
 with the same spirit with which it had been commenced. Steps 
 were taken to place the colonies in a state of defence ; rules 
 and regulations framed for the government of the troops ; 
 measures adopted to expel the enemy from the continent ; a 
 large force assigned for the siege of Boston ; bills of credit, to 
 the amount of $2,000,000, issued, and the faith of the twelve 
 colonies pledged for their redemption ; negotiations commenced 
 with the Indians, to engage their friendship and neutrality ; 
 and a resolution passed,** prohibiting all intercourse with Geor 
 gia, except St. John s Parish, (which had then renounced all 
 connection with the rest of the province,) Canada. Nova Scotia, 
 Newfoundland, the island of St. John, and East and West Flo 
 rida, as dependencies of the common enemy, until the further 
 order of Congress." 
 
 In short, Congress assumed, in behalf of the country, the 
 character of an independent nation, to effect certain specified 
 
123 
 
 objects ; and the colonists ratified their proceedings, and con 
 ferred upon that body, by the resolutions passed in their pri 
 mary assemblies, the powers of national government, so far as 
 they should be required for the accomplishment of the objects 
 proposed. These were, by negotiation or force, to bring the 
 mother country to a sense of what was due to the colonies, 
 3nd to settle the existing difficulties upon a permanent and 
 equitable footing. 
 
 About three months after the commencement of hostilities, 
 Georgia acceded to the confederation, and, of course, made 
 herself a party to the proceedings, views and responsibilities of 
 the other provinces. 
 
 In the course of the contest its character changed. The more 
 full developement of the ultimate designs of the British govern 
 ment had convinced the colonists that there could be no safety 
 in any connection with England, and they resolved upon sepa 
 ration. On the Fourth of July, 1776, by an unanimous vote of 
 the Continental Congress, "these -United Colonies were de 
 clared to be free and independent states," and all political con 
 nection between them and Great Britain to be totally dissolved. 
 This declaration was only a public acknowledgment and justi 
 fication of the resolution, which had been previously adopted, 
 Nearly two months previous to that period they had manifested 
 their determination, by recommending to the several provinces 
 to form new civil governments. It would be difficult, among 
 the many acts of resistance to the royal authority, to point out 
 in the proceedings of the leaders of the Revolution, the first 
 act by which they first indicated their determination to be a 
 separate nation ; but this manifesto gave the most satisfactory 
 evidence of their resolution, and pledged all the colonies to its 
 execution. 
 
 By this instrument, and the subsequent proceedings thereon, 
 the American people declared themselves to be an independent 
 nation, then at war with Great Britain ; but as such, the whole 
 were responsible to all the world, for the acts of the citizens of 
 each and every of the colonies. They were free and inde 
 pendent, not as isolated states, but as the UNITED STATES OF 
 AMERICA ; and as such only could they be regarded by mankind. 
 
124 
 
 As between themselves, they were hound together by their 
 acts and declarations ; although the terms and conditions of 
 their union were not properly defined. They comprehended, 
 however, all that was necessary to prosecute the war to a suc 
 cessful result. To this they had pledged themselves; and, 
 however Congress might have been disposed to conciliate and 
 to persuade the several states, instead of resorting to coercive 
 measures, no doubt can be entertained, that a refusal to comply 
 with its requisitions upon any of the states for the public ser 
 vice, was a violation of faith, and that a withdrawal from the 
 confederacy by one of its members, would have been a good 
 cause of war, and have justified the invasion and conquest of 
 that state by the rest of the union. The force of circumstances 
 had formed them into a nation, one and indivisible, and insti 
 tuted a general government, long before the state constitutions, 
 or the articles of confederation, were framed. As such they 
 were regarded by other civilized nations ; and in that character, 
 anterior to the adoption of any federal constitution, or articles 
 of confederation, they had entered into a treaty of commerce 
 and an offensive and defensive alliance with France ; and had 
 undertaken, in conjunction with that kingdom, important enter 
 prises, which pre-supposed the existence of a national govern 
 ment, and that that government possessed certain extensive 
 powers over the people of the United States. 
 
 With Great Britain, they were in a state of war, striving to 
 expel her troops from the continent, and to appropriate for 
 themselves as much of it as they could gain by force. With 
 this view, expeditions were undertaken against the several 
 British posts within the thirteen states, in Canada, the North- 
 West Territory, and St. Augustine, in Florida. 
 
 As to the other European powers, they were but one people, 
 and known either as the United States of America, or as the 
 insurgent colonies of Great Britain. While among themselves 
 they were communities formerly distinct for all the purposes of 
 local legislation; though subject in some matters, and especially 
 in all matters relating to Indian tribes and their territory, to the 
 legislation of the mother country and the royal authority ; but 
 
125 
 
 now united by common wrongs and common apprehensions in 
 one cause, and obliged to provide new political institutions to 
 meet the exigencies of their novel situation. 
 
 This subject early engaged the attention of the actors in the 
 Revolution ; and the novel spectacle was presented of a people 
 contending for freedom and independence with a power, whose 
 fleets and armies threatened their extermination, and occupied 
 with arms in their hands in laying the foundations and erecting 
 the superstructure of their political institutions. Since the time 
 when Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem, there had not been seen a 
 community, of whom it could be so emphatically said ; " every 
 person with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the 
 other hand held a weapon." 
 
 Although, in the first burst of resistance, the place of civil 
 government was supplied by public sentiment, and the powers 
 of the Provincial and Continental Congresses ; still the neces 
 sity of adopting a more regular, and belter defined political 
 system, was admitted by all. Congress, acting upon this con 
 viction, on the 15th of May, 1776, recommended to the people 
 of the several colonies " to adopt such government as should 
 in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce 
 to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, 
 and America in general."* 
 
 Pursuant to that recommendation, the local conventions pro 
 ceeded to prepare constitutions for each of the several colonies ; 
 and their delegates in the Continental Congress endeavoured 
 to frame an acceptable system of government for the confede 
 racy, by which the very indefinite powers possessed by that 
 body might be distinctly marked out, and the respective rights 
 and obligations of the general and local governments properly 
 defined. 
 
 The inhabitants of the old British Colonies, thus proceeded 
 simultaneously to institute the political system, under which they 
 were to exist as an independent community, united for some 
 purposes, and separated for others. The local governments, 
 
 * First Journal Old Congress, 339, 345. 
 
126 
 
 being more simple in their nature, and less extensive in their 
 operation, were more readily agreed upon, and earlier esta 
 blished; but the intention of forming a national government 
 was so early and so universally adopted, that it may be safely 
 asserted, that the American people never entertained the idea 
 of existing in independent and separate states. 
 
 They meant to be one and indivisible ; and the only difficulty 
 was how to apportion the powers of government, so as to give 
 to Congress such powers as would enable it to represent and 
 protect the national interests, without encroaching upon the 
 state authorities, to whom was confided the care of the local 
 interests. Instead, therefore, of regarding the general govern 
 ment as formed by concessions on the part of the state govern 
 ments ; it is to be considered as equally the establishment of 
 the people, who, for the sake of convenience, after framing its 
 constitution in a general Congress, expressed their assent to its 
 provisions through their local assemblies, and apportioned to 
 each its political powers, by the constitutions provided to guide 
 those to whose hands the administration of the government was 
 confided. 
 
 This apportionment, however, only referred to what then 
 existed, and not to what was subsequently acquired by the 
 thirteen states in their confederated character. For instance, 
 if any thing had been acquired by conquest from Great Britain, 
 as military munitions, or a province not acceding to the Union, 
 or uncultivated and unappropriated territory, it is clear that such 
 acquisition would have belonged to the confederacy, and not to 
 the states separately. It would have constituted a common 
 fund, to be appropriated for the prosecution of the war, the 
 reimbursement of the public creditors, or in any other way for 
 the general benefit. What belonged to the colonists, either in 
 dividually or as provincial communities, was apportioned at the 
 commencement of the Revolution among the several govern 
 ments ; but all acquisitions by conquest necessarily fell under 
 the jurisdiction of the national government. As the property 
 of the crown, it became the right of the opponent of the crown ; 
 as an acquisition in war, it was vested in that party which car- 
 
127 
 
 ried on the war. This opponent of the crown was the Ameri 
 can people, represented in Continental Congress. The quarrel- 
 was theirs, and theirs only, and to them, in their collective 
 capacity, belonged the acquisitions and results of that war. 
 
 It was soon, however, foreseen, that in case of success it 
 would be difficult to define the boundary, between what was 
 conquered from Great Britain, and what had previously be 
 longed to the colonists as distinct communities. This question 
 was intimately connected with another, touching the Indian 
 title to the territory occupied by them, and the right of pre 
 emption of that title. This right of pre-emption, according to 
 the English doctrine, belonged to the crown ; excepting in the 
 states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, where 
 it was vested in the colonists, and in Pennsylvania and Mary 
 land, which were proprietary governments. When the autho 
 rity of the crown was thrown off, it was natural and proper 
 that those aborigines who were surrounded by the white popu 
 lation, and within the actual jurisdiction of the local legislatures, 
 should be confided to their superintendence. Without any of 
 the attributes of independence ; unable to protect themselves 
 from their neighbours, and even from their own passions ; and 
 almost on the point of dissolution, as most of the tribes sur 
 rounded by the whites soon become, it was humane and neces 
 sary that those who were able, should assume the power and 
 right of protecting and governing them. They could not be 
 regarded as fit subjects for the care of a government instituted 
 for national purposes ; but formed a part of the several com 
 munities in which they resided, as the gypsies formerly made 
 a part of many of the European states. 
 
 On the other hand, those tribes which did not come in con 
 tact w r ith even the frontier settlements of the colonists, as natu 
 rally fell within the jurisdiction of the general government. 
 They were independent in fact; under the government of their 
 own chiefs and national councils ; and at the formation of our 
 government, so far from claiming any authority over them, great 
 solicitude was manifested, and great pains taken by the public 
 authorities to conciliate them, and to preserve their friendship 
 or neutrality in the impending contest. 
 
128 
 
 Other tribes, almost in contact with the white settlement?, 
 without being enveloped by them, could not be so distinctly 
 classed. They were too powerful and too well organized tu 
 be ranked with the former as under no government of their 
 own, and still they were so connected with the colonists and 
 the crown by treaties, as to be considered partly dependent. 
 
 The same state of things existed as to the western boundaries. 
 With the exception of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
 New-Jersey and Rhode Island, the chartered limits of the pro 
 vinces were very indefinite. So far as the states had any 
 existence independent of the royal charters, they were com 
 munities confined to the eastern side of the Appalachian moun 
 tains. To the extent of their continuous settlements, arid, in 
 deed, to the utmost limits of their usual and actual jurisdiction, 
 no doubt could be entertained as to the right of the several 
 states. As little could exist as to the right of the confederacy 
 to that territory, which had been placed beyond the provincial 
 limits by the crown, and which, consequently, was an acquisition, 
 by war, from Great Britain. It was difficult to define the extent 
 of these respective rights ; and this difficulty was increased by 
 the conflicting claims of the different states as to their own 
 boundaries. Another question was also presented by the nature 
 of the Indian title, and the doctrine that notwithstanding this 
 title, the ultimate dominion, or right of pre-emption, belonged 
 to the crown. Within the acknowledged limits of many of the 
 states, the Indians still claimed and occupied large tracts of 
 territory, to which their title had not been extinguished. 
 
 Here, again, were conflicting claims. The confederacy con 
 tended, that all this was royal property, and therefore became 
 vested in the antagonist of the crown. The states insisted that 
 they possessed the sovereignty over the soil, and that that car 
 ried with it the property. These complicated difficulties left 
 no other alternative, than to arrange the matters by compro 
 mise and negotiation. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the local conventions and Pro 
 vincial Congresses proceeded to institute state governments, 
 and the Continental Congress to frame articles of confederation, 
 for the direction of the general government. 
 
RELATIONS 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 THE CHEROKEES 
 
 AND THE 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The relations existing between the government of the United 
 States and the Cherokee nation, are now rendered more worthy 
 of examination than ever, by the late proceedings at Washing 
 ton. 
 
 The character of the confederacy of the United States, (which 
 directly depends upon the proper adjustment of these relations,) 
 is a subject of great interest, both to the present generation and 
 to posterity. It is regarded by the contending parties through 
 out the political world, as the great exemplar of free govern 
 ments, and upon its conduct and success depends the speedy 
 advancement, or the temporary defeat, of the liberal party. Its 
 force is not a physical, but a moral force. It consists in a na 
 tional character, unsullied by injustice and oppression. The 
 inquirer cannot find in their annals the records of successful 
 and unprovoked invasions of triumphs achieved over the rights 
 of nations and humanity. The government of the nation has, 
 on all occasions, appealed to reason as its standard, and by that 
 standard it will be judged. After a profession of its principles, 
 so openly and so often reiterated, it cannot shape its course ac 
 cording to the dictates of a temporizing, prevaricating policy. 
 It must act up to its principles, or it must disavow them. The 
 path of honour and justice is open, and it may travel on alone, 
 sustained only by the moral strength, which a strict adherence 
 
 Q 
 
130 
 
 to the maxims of integrity gives to a nation ; or it may shrink 
 from its high destiny, and, like the members of the Holy Alli 
 ance, stoop to share in the petty plunder, derived from stripping 
 the weak and the defenceless of their possessions. If it be 
 emulous of the fame of the partitioners of Poland, the invaders 
 of Spain, and the plunderers of India ; an opportunity to equal, 
 and even exceed them, is forced upon the government of the 
 United States, by the conduct of the state of Georgia ; and 
 upon the disposition of that question rests the future character 
 of our country. By the rash and unjustifiable measures of that 
 state, the national government is compelled to become a parly 
 to the forcible removal of the Indians within its limits, or to 
 protect them in the lawful enjoyment of their rightful posses 
 sions. 
 
 In an age like this, with a free press, and thousands ready 
 and willing to vindicate the rights of the meanest and most de 
 fenceless ; we cannot, if we would, dispose of thousands of 
 human beings, like cattle, without inquiry. Their wrongs will 
 go forth to the world, and the agency that \ve have in their final 
 disposition, must make part of the national history. Let us, then, 
 as we value the opinion of mankind, as we regard the approval 
 of our consciences, examine well the relations between the 
 white inhabitants of the United States, and the surviving abo 
 rigines, before any irrevocable step be taken. 
 
 Scarcely two centuries have elapsed, since the Europeans 
 landed upon the American continent. They then found the 
 country covered by the native tribes of the new world. The 
 resources of the country were not so fully developed, as if civil 
 ized men had applied their faculties and arts to that end. Ag 
 riculture, Commerce, and manufactures, did not flourish, as if 
 under the control of civilization. This, however, did not give 
 to Europe a right to depopulate America. To vacant territory, 
 the white comer had as good a right as the tawny native ; but 
 to occupied territory, to land appropriated to the purposes of 
 planting and hunting, the Indian had a right, which was as valid 
 as that of an English nobleman to his extensive manor and va 
 cant park. The history of the early colonial settlements, shows 
 
131 
 
 this right to have been generally respected ; and purchases were 
 made from the native chieftains by the first settlers, of large 
 tracts of land, for which a valuable consideration was given. 
 Notwithstanding the fairness of the public authorities, injustice 
 was occasionally practised by individuals ; and the ignorant 
 and untutored savage was often driven, by these unauthorized 
 wrongs, into indiscriminate hostilities with the colonists. If, in 
 the conflicts, their numbers were wasted, and often whole tribes 
 were exterminated, one could only lament the hard fate which 
 seemed inevitable. The peculiar situation of the colonists, and 
 the habits of their foes, impelled them to that course. With 
 the founder of Carthage, they might have truly said, 
 
 " Res duraet regni novitas nos talia cogunt 
 Moliri." 
 
 In the lapse of time, however, this necessity ceased : and the 
 philanthropic men who guided the councils of these states, when 
 they were uniting as one nation, determined to make an effort 
 to preserve the remnant of the American Indians from the de 
 struction to which they were visibly hastening. A peculiar race 
 of men was wasting away a race, distinguished for many noble 
 and exalted qualities, was daily diminished by the sword, the 
 pestilence, and the vices which they had acquired from the ex 
 ample of the Europeans, without adopting the political and 
 social system, which deprived those vices of their exterminating 
 qualities. In a few more generations, unless some effort should 
 be made for their preservation, they felt that the aborigines 
 would cease to exist, and the race be numbered with those, 
 whose language and habits only afford scope for the speculative 
 inquiry of the antiquarian. This decay, too, had commenced 
 upon the arrival of the Europeans, and seemed to be a conse 
 quence of their contiguity. As philanthropists, therefore, and 
 as patriots, watchful over the national character, they were 
 desirous to rescue the Indian from extinction, and to elevate 
 him to the rank of civilized man. They felt this to be due, not 
 only to the savages and to their own character, but it was a just 
 tribute to their ancestors, who had founded this empire of civilized 
 humanity in the American wilderness, to serve as a refuge from 
 
132 
 
 the oppression and injustice of the old world. They could not 
 bear, that their fathers should be reproached as the merciless 
 extirpators of the aboriginal race. They had no ambition to be 
 ranked with the Goths and Vandals, who destroyed the Roman 
 empire ; with the devastators of Europe ; or with the unrelent 
 ing conquerors of Hispaniola and of Mexico, who laid the foun 
 dations of their sway in the destruction of the native inhabitants 
 of those countries. While they anxiously sought to perpetuate 
 and extend the Anglo-American republic, they were not regard 
 less of the untutored savages within its limits. They intended, 
 if possible, to elevate them to an equality with themselves, by 
 affording to them all the helps of civilization ; and. at all events, 
 to preserve themselves, in case of their extinction, from all par 
 ticipation in hastening that unhappy result. 
 
 As civilized men, and as Christians, they were bound to 
 extend the benefits of their superior knowledge to the Indians. 
 The preservation of the savage from extinction, and his ad 
 vancement in the scale of creation, depended, in a great degree, 
 upon the conduct of his civilized neighbours. This duty was 
 rendered more imperative by the unauthorized wrongs to which 
 the aborigines were subjected by individual rapacity, provoking, 
 as they frequently did, contests, where, from the hard necessity 
 of the case, the Indian, though not always the aggressor, was 
 invariably the sufferer. 
 
 Whilst the British government claimed the sovereignty over 
 the country, an adequate excuse was perhaps offered for not 
 adopting any general plan for the improvement and civilization 
 of the natives. Individual efforts were not wanting, and the 
 names of Winthrop, Williams, Baltimore, Penn, Oglethorpe, 
 Elliot, and Brainerd, are sufficient to rescue our ancestors from 
 the charge of indifference on this important point. 
 
 Upon the assumption of independence, however, the whole 
 responsibility devolved upon those who founded the American 
 government. A wider field was opened for the exercise of all 
 the noble and exalted qualities, which distinguish those who ad 
 minister government for the benefit of society, from those who 
 usurp it for themselves. By settling among the aborigines, and 
 
133 
 
 by elevating their country to the rank of an independent power, 
 our ancestors charged themselves with all the responsibilities 
 which grew out of the relations existing between educated and 
 civilized Christians, and the ignorant and savage heathen 
 who surrounded them. 
 
 A principle had, indeed, been adopted by all Christendom, 
 which vested, so far as European consent could vest, the sove 
 reignty of the country in the first European discoverers or occu 
 pants, to the exclusion of all other European nations. This 
 gave to the United States, upon the acquisition of their inde 
 pendence, the sovereignty within certain limits, as against any 
 adverse European claimant. This was but a qualified sove 
 reignty. It was a right of sovereignty as against foreign 
 nations ; and the government also assumed authority as sove 
 reign over its own subjects, to prevent American citizens from 
 interfering with the territory in possession of the Indians, which, 
 upon the extinguishment of the aboriginal title, it claimed as 
 public property. It did not, however, claim the right to appro 
 priate the soil, without the consent of the native inhabitants. 
 In no province did the colonists conceive their title to be good, 
 so long as the Indian title remained unextinguished. To the 
 honour of the country be it recorded, that in no instance did the 
 public authorities sanction the abominable doctrine, that civili 
 zation gave to the white man a right to exterminate or enslave 
 the native, or to confiscate or appropriate the property or land 
 of his tribe. These Indians, whatever may be thought of the 
 wisdom of that Providence who so ordered it, were the original 
 occupants and owners of the country. They had enjoyed it 
 from immemorial time. Our ancestors, indeed, had a right to 
 land on this continent, and to occupy as much vacant soil as was 
 necessary for their accommodation : but neither they, nor any 
 other men, had a right to drive the aborigines from their posses 
 sions. This right of accommodating themselves, by occupying 
 vacant land in a wilderness, must be so exercised as not to in 
 terfere with the rights of others. It is founded upon a presump 
 tion, that the Deity intended the soil for cultivation ; but the 
 Deity also created the Indian to enjoy the soil after his manner; 
 
134 
 
 and unnecessarily to deprive him of his limited enjoyment, 
 would not only be unjust, but cruel. Such are the great and 
 immutable principles of morality and natural jurisprudence. 
 
 The Indians were not subjected by any right of conquest ; 
 and the abominable doctrine of the ancient Papal Church, that 
 the property and persons of the heathen were the lawful prey 
 of Christians, had been long rejected as one of the maxims of 
 a barbarous age. The Indians were, therefore, to be treated 
 as a separate and independent people, governed by their own 
 customs and laws, and occupying their own territory. All in 
 terference with them on the part of the whites was regulated 
 by treaty, and their territory was to be acquired only by com 
 pact. Such were the principles adopted by the government of 
 the United States at its formation in regard to the aborigines. 
 They had been generally conformed to by the colonial govern 
 ments ; but the national sanction then given to them was of a 
 more deliberate and solemn character. At the same time, they 
 undertook the fulfilment of the duties growing out of the supe 
 rior relation in which they stood. In the moment of impending 
 peril ; at the commencement of their desperate struggle with 
 the mother country when they knew that years of suffering 
 and trial must be endured before the attainment of their right 
 of self-government, they forgot not their obligations towards 
 the aborigines ; but deliberately adopted, as a part of their 
 national policy, apian to improve their condition. 
 
 They exhorted them to stand aloof during the approaching 
 conflict. An Indian department was organized, to be admin 
 istered by commissioners, and in the same year that the Decla 
 ration of Independence received the sanction of Congress, 
 resolutions were also adopted providing for the protection and 
 improvement of the Indians, and recommending measures for 
 the propagation of the Gospel, and the cultivation of the civil 
 arts among them. With this view, provisions were made regu 
 lating the Indian trade, and a deliberate scheme of policy 
 adopted for their gradual improvement and civilization. Trea 
 ties were made with the principal tribes, defining the boundaries 
 between their territory and that belonging to the whites ; and 
 
135 
 
 the United States agreed to furnish, at their expense, the prin 
 cipal tribes with domestic animals, implements of husbandry, 
 blacksmiths, and, in some instances, " suitable persons to teach 
 them to make fences, cultivate the earth, and such of the do 
 mestic arts as are adapted to their situation." The object of 
 these treaties cannot be misunderstood. It was an offer on the 
 part of the national government to the savage of civilization. 
 It was a manifestation of one of the most glorious attributes of 
 superior intelligence, and breathed the purest spirit of a religion, 
 which proclaims peace on earth, good will among men. 
 
 This offer was accepted on the part of the Indians. Amidst 
 all the degradation which had attended their intercourse with 
 the whites, they always manifested an earnest wish to preserve 
 their race from extinction, and to partake of the improvement 
 of their civilized brethren. 
 
 Upon this footing matters stood at the commencement of the 
 independent existence of this Republic. The whites claimed 
 sovereignty over the whole territory, to the exclusion of foreign 
 nations, but did not assume to exercise any of its rights over 
 the Indians. The tribes were treated as distinct and indepen 
 dent ; and the boundaries between the respective territories of 
 the two parties were marked out by treaty. Congress, under 
 the old Confederation, did not presume to extend its jurisdiction 
 over the territory which the Indians had reserved to themselves ; 
 and it always strenuously denied that the state governments had 
 any right to interfere with Indian affairs. The United States 
 were seeking to civilize the Indians, and to render them a sta 
 tionary people, depending for subsistence on the cultivation of 
 the soil. All this, however, was attempted to be done by the 
 moral influence of precept and example. 
 
 It must be borne in mind, that, in establishing these relations, 
 the white man was the lawgiver, and the Indian acceded to 
 them, because he was made to believe that they would result 
 to his benefit. 
 
 It was implied that they would ultimately eventuate in the 
 establishment of the aborigines, as a civilized community, within 
 the territory secured to the tribes by the treaty. On no other 
 
136 
 
 supposition can the National Government escape from the im 
 putation of holding out deceptive expectations to the Indians. 
 
 The good faith heretofore manifested by the federal autho 
 rities, conclusively shows, that this was the result which was 
 desired. The first section of the act making an annual appro 
 priation for the civilization of the adjoining tribes, affords a 
 memorable proof of the sincerity of its intentions : " For the 
 purpose of providing against the further decline and final ex 
 tinction of the Indian tribes adjoining the frontier settlements, 
 and of introducing among them the habits and arts of a civilized 
 life, the President of the United States is authorized, when he 
 shall judge improvement practicable, and that the means of in 
 struction can be introduced with their own consent, to employ 
 capable persons, of good moral character, to instruct them in 
 the mode of agriculture suited to their situation, and for teach 
 ing their children," &c. 
 
 The talk of Mr. Madison to the Indians, in 1812, affords 
 another proof of its sincerity ; and. as the manifesto of the 
 American government, we shall submit a part of this document 
 to the public. 
 
 " I have a further advice to my red children. You see how the 
 country of the eighteen fires is filled with children. They in 
 crease like the corn they put into the ground. They all have 
 good houses to shelter them from all weathers, good clothes 
 suitable to all seasons ; and as for food of all sorts, you see they 
 have enough and to spare. No man, woman or child, of the 
 eighteen fires, ever perished of hunger. Compare all this with 
 the condition of the red people. They are scattered here and 
 there in handfuls. Their lodges are cold, leaky and smoky. 
 They have hard fare, and often not enough of it. 
 
 " Why this mighty difference ? The reason, my red children, 
 is plain. The white people breed cattle and sheep. They spin 
 and weave. Their heads and their hands make all the elements 
 and productions of nature useful to them. 
 
 " It is in your power to be like them. The ground that feeds 
 one lodge by hunting, would feed a great band by the plough 
 and the hoe. The Great Spirit has given you, like your white 
 
137 
 
 brethren, good heads to contrive, and strong arms and active 
 bodies. Use them like your white brethren of the eighteen 
 fires, and, like them, your little sparks will grow into great fires. 
 You will be well fed, dwell in good houses, and enjoy the hap 
 piness for which you, like them, were created. These are the 
 words of your father to his red children. The Great Spirit, 
 who is the father of us all, approves them. Let them pass 
 through the ear into the heart. Carry them home to your people ; 
 and as long as you remember this visit to your father of the 
 eighteen fires, remember, these are his last and best words 
 to you !" 
 
 The beneficent policy which is here so simply, but beautifully 
 recommended, has partially succeeded with many Indian tribes. 
 In the Cherokee nation, however, it has produced the most tri 
 umphant results results which establish the practicability of 
 civilizing the Indians. It has been the good fortune of the 
 Cherokees to have had born among them some great men. Of 
 these, Charles Hicks, lately a chief, stood pre-eminent. Under 
 his guiding counsels, and aided by the policy of the national 
 government, they have outstripped the other tribes in the march 
 of improvement. They seek to be a people, and to maintain, 
 by law and good government, the security of persons and the 
 rights of property. That they have made great advances in 
 civilization, is generally understood ; but, in order to present an 
 exact picture of their condition, the following account, extracted 
 from a letter of David Brown, resident in the tribe, and pub 
 lished among the official documents of the government, is here 
 inserted : 
 
 " Horses are plenty, and are used for servile purposes among 
 them. Numerous flocks of sheep, goats, and swine, cover the 
 valleys and hills. The natives carry on considerable trade with 
 the adjoining states ; and some of them export cotton, in boats, 
 to New-Orleans. Apple and peach orchards are quite common ; 
 and gardens are cultivated, and much attention paid to them. 
 Butter and cheese are seen on Cherokee tables. There are 
 many public roads in the nation, and houses of entertainment 
 kept by the natives. Numerous and flourishing villages are seen 
 
138 
 
 in every section of the country. Cotton and woollen cloths are 
 manufactured here. Blankets, of various dimensions, manufac 
 tured by Cherokee hands, are very common. Almost every 
 family in the nation grows cotton for its own consumption. In 
 dustry and commercial enterprise are extending themselves in 
 every part. Nearly all the merchants in the nation are native 
 Cherokees. Agricultural pursuits engage the chief attention of 
 the people. Different branches in mechanics are pursued. 
 The population is rapidly increasing. In the year 1819, the 
 Cherokees, east of the Mississippi, were estimated at 10,000 
 souls. In 1825, they amounted to 13,563 native citizens; be 
 sides 220 whites, and 1,277 slaves." 
 
 They have also established a constitution, whose provisions 
 are better calculated, as it is expressed in its preamble, " to es 
 tablish justice, insure tranquillity, promote the common welfare, 
 and secure to ourselves and posterity the blessings of liberty," 
 than many of the more elaborate contrivances of their European 
 brethren. The government is representative in its form, and is 
 divided into executive, legislative, and judicial departments. 
 The trial by the jury is established, and the particular provisions 
 of the constitution, while they are calculated to accustom the 
 Cherokees to the principles of our system of jurisprudence, are 
 peculiarly well adapted to the anomalous condition in which the 
 nation is placed. The whole is well suited to secure to the 
 tribe the improvements already made, and to stimulate them to 
 further advances in civilization. 
 
 Another proof given by the people of their capacity of self- 
 improvement is furnished in the Cherokee alphabet, invented 
 by one of their native chieftains, named Guess. Like Cadmus, 
 he has given to his nation the alphabet of their language. It is 
 composed of eighty-six characters, so well adapted to the pecu 
 liar sounds of the Indian tongue, that Cherokees, who had des 
 paired of acquiring the requisite knowledge by means of the 
 schools, are soon enabled to read and correspond with each other. 
 This invention in one of the greatest achievements of aboriginal 
 intellect. Like the European and the Asiatic, the American 
 savage has now found a means of perpetuating the productions 
 
139 
 
 of mind. A barrier is erected against the encroachments of 
 oblivion. 
 
 Henceforth his peculiar forms of expression, his mental com 
 binations, and the sublime suggestions of his imagination and 
 feelings will be preserved. An empire of intellect is founded 
 upon a new and stable foundation, and when did such an 
 empire experience a decline, till by regular gradations it had 
 attained the climax of human grandeur ? 
 
 A printing press established in the nation, issues a news 
 paper, periodically, imparting information and intelligence 
 throughout the country. 
 
 The religion adopted by the nation, and now universally pro 
 fessed by the whole Cherokee people, is that promulgated by 
 Him who was sent on a divine mission to the Gentile as well 
 as the Jew to the savage as well as the civilized man the 
 religion of Christianity, which, wherever it reigns, whether in 
 Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, elevates its professors above 
 those of other religions. 
 
 Such is the spectacle now presented by the Cherokee nation. 
 It reflects honour on the past policy of the government, and 
 affords irrefragable proof of the sincerity of its intentions 
 towards the aboriginals, and a conclusive answer to the charge 
 of cruelty and grasping cupidity in its transactions with them. 
 When the British Quarterly accuses our government of decep 
 tive attempts " to preserve appearances by fraudulent and com 
 pulsory purchases of land," and states to Christendom (as it 
 lately did, No. 61.) that "it has always been the boast of Ame 
 rican policy, that the Indians shall be made to vanish before civili 
 zation, as the snow melts before the sunbeam" we can appeal to 
 this tribe for a refutation of the charge. Here, we can say, 
 exists a community of aborigines, enjoying the lights of Chris 
 tianity, and fast advancing, under the protection of the republic, 
 to an equality with the white race in civilization. 
 
 Here is the evidence on which we rely for a refutation of the 
 calumny, and, so long as it exists, it will afford the proudest evi 
 dence of the beneficent spirit of the government, of an unstained 
 national character, and of the power of civilization. 
 
140 
 
 Whether this testimony is to remain in the archives of the 
 country, among the title deeds and evidences of national cha 
 racter, which were handed over by the late administration to its 
 successors, has now become a question to be finally settled. 
 The measures of the administration, since the accession of Gen. 
 Jackson, commencing with his talk to the Creeks of March 
 23d, and the letter of the Secretary of War to the Cherokee 
 delegation, of the 18th of April, 1829, indicate a departure from 
 the ancient policy of the government. They are in a different 
 strain from those previously presented ; but whether in a loftier, 
 a nobler, or even in a fairer strain, is a question now to be ex 
 amined. The President, in his talk, tells the Creeks that they 
 must remove, because "you and my white children are too near 
 each other to live in harmony and peace." This is a short and 
 emphatic way of solving the difficulty. It is, indeed, a " straight 
 talk," and comes to the point with military directness. 
 
 With the Cherokees, however, the administration is more ar 
 gumentative, and certain principles and statements are appealed 
 to, in order to justify this departure from its ancient policy. It 
 is placed on the ground that, in the Revolutionary war, the 
 Cherokees were allies of Great Britain ; and that the treaty of 
 Hopewell, by which they were received into the favour of the 
 United States, only allotted to them certain territory as hunting 
 grounds ; that, upon the acquisition of independence, all the 
 rights of Great Britain became vested in the original states of 
 this Union, including North Carolina and Georgia; that those 
 states never relinquished the rights of sovereignty and jurisdic 
 tion over the soil to the Union, and consequently may now ex 
 ercise those rights, notwithstanding any treaty made by the 
 federal government : and that the guaranty given by the 
 United States was not adverse to the sovereignty of Georgia, 
 because the United States had not the power to give such gua 
 ranty. It would not be too strong to say, that these assumptions 
 and statements are generally unfounded, and evince an entire 
 want of the knowledge of our Indian relations; but as we seek 
 to inform the public, so that its opinion may have its proper and 
 legitimate effect we shall present a concise statement of these 
 relations, from official sources. 
 
141 
 
 By the treaty of Hopewell, the boundary of the lands " allotted 
 for their hunting grounds" was marked out. By the same 
 treaty it was agreed, that if a citizen of the United States 
 attempted to settle on those lands, he might be punished by the 
 Indians according to their own laws; and by the twelfth article 
 it was provided, that the Indians should have the right to send 
 a deputy of their own choice, whenever they thought fit, to 
 Congress. This treaty was made in the year 1785, under the 
 old Confederation, when Congress had the power of regulating 
 trade, and managing all affairs with Indians, " not members of 
 any state." These tribes were clearly not members of any 
 state, and, of course, the management of their affairs fell under 
 the jurisdiction of Congress. Georgia, however, did not assent 
 to this construction of the articles of confederation. Although, 
 during the fury of the contest, and while dependent for exist 
 ence upon the arms and efforts of the Union, it had remained 
 silent ; no sooner was peace obtained than it sought to appro 
 priate, for its separate benefit, the territory obtained by the 
 common effort of all ; and set up pretensions to interfere with 
 the Indian tribes, to which Congress was compelled to oppose 
 its high authority. The opinion that was entertained of the 
 conduct of Georgia, in this respect, may be collected from the 
 proceedings of Congress in the year 1787, particularly from a 
 report dated August 3d, a resolution passed October 20th, and 
 the instructions to the Commissioners for negotiating a treaty 
 with the Southern Indians. 
 
 In all these, the conduct of Georgia is condemned, and its 
 pretensions pointedly rebuked. The Federal Constitution was 
 finally adopted, and in that instrument provisions were inserted, 
 with the view of obviating the previous difficulties. The treaty- 
 making power was vested in the President and Senate, and the 
 states were prohibited from entering into any treaty of any 
 description ; and the limitation contained in the old articles of 
 confederation of the power of Congress for regulating Indian 
 affairs, viz., "provided that the legislative right of any state 
 within its own limits, should not be infringed or violated," was 
 omitted. 
 
142 
 
 This change was designedly made, in order to prevent colli 
 sions between the state and national authorities, in relation to 
 the Indians, like those which had taken place under the old con 
 stitution. The federal government was now invested with the 
 exclusive power to regulate commerce with the Indians, and 
 of making treaties with them ; and also of repelling their hostile 
 encroachments. 
 
 To this constitution Georgia became a party; and thereby 
 relinquished all right of interfering with Indian affairs. The 
 general government now proceeded to establish friendly rela 
 tions with the Cherokees, who, with the Creeks, had been 
 driven into a war with the whites, by the conduct of Georgia. 
 
 In 1791, a treaty was concluded at Holston, between the 
 United States and the Cherokees, by which the boundary line 
 was established, and the Cherokee claim to the land, east and 
 south of the line, extinguished. 
 
 The 7th article of that treaty is as follows : 
 
 " The United States solemnly guaranty to the Cherokee 
 nation all their land not hereby ceded." 
 
 It was further stipulated, that all citizens settling on the Che 
 rokee land, should forfeit the protection of the United States ; 
 and that any citizen of the United States committing any 
 offence within the Cherokee territory, should be punished as if 
 the same had been committed " within the jurisdiction of the 
 State or District to which he may belong, against a citizen 
 thereof." 
 
 Provisions were also made for the improvement of the con 
 dition of the tribe, and that they "may be led to a greater 
 degree of civilization, and to become herdsmen and cultivators, 
 instead of remaining in a state of hunters." 
 
 In 1798, a further cession of their territory was made by the 
 treaty of Tellico ; and the United States, in the 6th article, 
 agreed to ** continue the guaranty of the remainder of their 
 country FOR EVER." 
 
 Other treaties were subsequently made, down to the year 
 1819, not altering the relations established by those treaties: 
 but, on the contrary, by a treaty made in 1817, the old treaties 
 were expressly confirmed. 
 
143 
 
 These were the obligations which the United States had 
 assumed previous to the agreement of 1802, with Georgia : 
 a solemn guaranty of the Cherokee lands for ever to that nation, 
 and a promise to establish them as cultivators of the soil, and 
 to promote their civilization. 
 
 The President declares this guaranty to be no longer binding, 
 and that the United States have not the power to interfere to 
 prevent their expulsion. No longer binding ! And why ? The 
 Cherokees have not released them from their obligation. They 
 have committed no act of hostility, by which the treaties have 
 been annulled. On the contrary, they have adhered to the 
 United States through good report and through evil report ; 
 and when their blood has been shed in battle, it was in the 
 white man s cause. 
 
 How then is our pledge redeemed ? The agreement between 
 the United States and Georgia, of 1802, does not touch the case. 
 This was a compact to which the Indians did not assent. It 
 released the United States from no obligations to third parties. 
 It only declared the boundary line between the public territory 
 and that territory, which was thereafter to constitute the state 
 of Georgia. Previous to that agreement, the western limits of 
 that state had been the subject of dispute. Georgia claimed to 
 extend its western boundary to the Mississippi: the United 
 States claimed, as public territory, all west of the Ocmulgee 
 river. According to the construction given by the United States 
 to the charter of Georgia, its western boundary would have run 
 through the present centre of that state ; and all between that 
 line and the Mississippi, was territory to which both parties laid 
 claim. After much discussion, these conflicting claims were 
 settled by the agreement of 1802 Georgia ceding to the United 
 States "her right, title and claim to the jurisdiction and soil of 
 the lands" west of her present boundary ; and the United States 
 ceding to Georgia their " claim, right, and title, to the jurisdic 
 tion or soil of any lands" east of that boundary. It must be 
 borne in mind, that in no other instance where the claims of the 
 United States and individual states to disputed territory were 
 settled, was it thought necessary for the United States to cede 
 
144 
 
 their claim to the territory reserved by the state as within its 
 proper limits. The National Government accepted the cession, 
 and the title of the state to the territory not ceded became 
 complete. In the case of Georgia, however, it was deemed 
 essential, in order to vest in the state a good title to a part of 
 its present territory, comprehending the whole Cherokee coun 
 try now in dispute, for the United States to cede their right. 
 This cession, of course, comprehended no more than the United 
 States could give, viz., a title encumbered with all their obliga 
 tions to the Indian tribes occupying the territory ceded ; and 
 Georgia took it, subject to the guaranty of the United States 
 to the Cherokee nation. The guaranty was prior to the agree 
 ment, and unless it be maintained that the United States and 
 Georgia were competent to dispose of the vested rights of third 
 parties, it must enter into the construction of that agreement. 
 The cautious limitation of the obligation assumed by the United 
 States to extinguish the Indian title, east of the boundary, 
 " when it could be peaceably obtained upon reasonable terms," 
 shows that this guaranty entered into the contemplation of both 
 parties, and that they looked only to a voluntary cession. To 
 this mode of extinguishing the Indian title, and the limitation 
 of its sovereignty, which the prior obligations of the United 
 States imposed, Georgia expressly assented, by an act of its 
 legislature, declaring the articles of cession to be binding and 
 conclusive on the state and its citizens, for ever. It now, how 
 ever, claims the right to remove the Cherokees, by extending 
 its sovereignty over them. The citizens of Georgia have be 
 come impatient at their long and continued residence among 
 them, and they are clamorous for their removal. Their cupidity 
 has been excited, and their avarice inflamed, by the fair and 
 promised land which they occupy, and they call aloud for its 
 division among them by a lottery. The spacious territory which 
 has been so lately ceded by the Creeks, has excited, rather than 
 satisfied their desire ; 
 
 " As if increase of appetite bed grown, 
 By what it fed on." 
 
145 
 
 and they demand the Cherokee country, with its cultivated 
 fields, its luxuriant gardens and orchards, and its flourishing 
 villages, with the view of further corrupting the people of the 
 state by another land lottery. This is the object at heart. This 
 is the real motive of all this craving desire to remove the Indians. 
 For years the state has been urging it on the General Govern 
 ment, in a tone alike discreditable to its humanity and patriot 
 ism. In order to effect it, one fraudulent treaty was made, 
 at the instance and under the direction of the state government, 
 which the late administration, sustained as it was, in that par 
 ticular, by public opinion, refused to carry into effect. Finding 
 that they can neither persuade nor cajole the Cherokees into a 
 cessation, they now attempt to intimidate them, by threatening 
 to extend the jurisdiction of the state over them. 
 
 In this at least there is nothing to shock the moral sense of 
 mankind. The jurisdiction of Georgia! Surely there can be 
 nothing here but an extension of the benefits of civilization, 
 under the direction of a civilized legislature! The inhabitants 
 of Europe and America, who may feel solicitous for the fate of 
 the Indians, can find here no substantial violation of guaranties, 
 no disregard of national faith ! It is but an extension of the 
 social and judicial system of Georgia over the Cherokees ! The 
 whole procedure is in the spirit of benevolence, and forms only 
 a part of the national policy ! 
 
 Such is the plausible appearance of the outward aspect of 
 this proposition ; but in reality it is a decree of removal and 
 expulsion. It is mild and pleasant, like the voice of Jacob ; but 
 the hands are those of Esau. The jurisdiction of Georgia is 
 one thing to the whites ; but another and an opposite thing to all 
 of a different complexion. To the whites it speaks in the spirit 
 of the common law, and secures to them freedom and equal 
 privileges : to the Indian it speaks in the language of proscrip 
 tion, and divesting him of both civil and political rights, degrades 
 him from the rank of a freeman, to the level of a disfranchised 
 mulatto and negro. Without the privilege of voting, or of appear 
 ing in courts, either as party, witness, or juror, stripped entirely 
 of his civil rights, and of his national character, he is placed at the 
 
146 
 
 mercy of the government of Georgia ; at the mercy of a govern 
 ment maintaining in the face of heaven and man, such principles 
 as have been disclosed in the official papers of that unfortunate 
 state on this subject. 
 
 This would indeed be committere agnum lupo. 
 
 It is not easy for a government to divest itself of all concern, 
 for those whose interests are committed to its charge. The 
 worst governments have always more or less of public motive 
 to excuse their policy ; but when a government has two classes 
 of subjects, the one to enrich, and the other to impoverish ; when 
 one becomes the sole object of its care, and the other of its ra 
 pacity, it is impossible to imagine a system of more unmitiga 
 ted oppression. 
 
 Unchecked by human feeling, and with all its measures sanc 
 tioned by motives of expediency and care for the public weal, 
 it deliberately proceeds to the perpetration of acts, from which 
 individual wickedness would recoil with horror. Already have 
 we seen under the sanction of these laws, the citizens of Georgia, 
 invading the Cherokee territory as if it were an enemy s country, 
 dragging its inhabitants before the state magistrates, and finally 
 condemning them to prison as criminals, because they will not 
 acknowledge the legality of these unconstitutional laws. 
 
 Well may the General Government take it for granted, that 
 the migration of the Cherokee nation is the only alternative. 
 With the high and exalted ideas entertained by the Cherokees 
 of their national character, they never can consent to be dis 
 franchised, and scattered like vagrants through the state, relying 
 for protection only on the tender mercies of their persecutors. 
 Better, at once, to oppose themselves to this systematic usurpa 
 tion ; and, calling on the United States for a compliance with 
 their guaranty, and relying on the justice of their cause, to resist, 
 to the last, all invasions of their country, and of their homes. 
 They have every thing which can animate them to resist. On 
 one side, exile and extirpation ; on the other, their continuance 
 as a civilized people. If they remove into the wilderness, 
 beyond the Mississippi, nothing human can preserve them from 
 the fate of the other tribes, which have been overwhelmed by 
 
147 
 
 the tide of civilization. Civilized man has passed them in his 
 onward march to the Pacific ; and they have not yet proved 
 victims to a movement, which, like the car of Juggernaut, has 
 crushed others into the earth. They have escaped from most 
 of the frontier collisions and conflicts, which are produced by 
 the advance of the pioneers of civilization into the wilderness. 
 They have obtained a vantage ground, from which they can see 
 the promised land ; where, according to the words of their 
 American Father, " they may cultivate the soil, and increase 
 their little sparks to great fires," under the protecting arm of 
 this Republic. Let them cling to it as to the ark of their salva 
 tion. If necessary, let them resist unto death. Better, a thou 
 sand times better, would be the quiet of the grave, than pro 
 tracting a miserable existence, rendered wretched by repeated 
 and compulsory removals into the wilderness, before the ad 
 vancing footsteps of the more powerful people who occupy their 
 country, and treat its ancient possessors with persecution and 
 heartless contempt. Tantalized with hopes of civilization which 
 they are forbidden to realize ; deprived of the hardy vigour of 
 the savage state, and then called upon to relinquish the comforts 
 of their improved condition ; if driven beyond the Mississippi, 
 they must share the fate of a race, which, like the autumnal 
 leaves of their own forest, seem doomed to be scattered by every 
 blast, but to whom no spring brings renovation. 
 
 From this fate they have no hope of escaping, but through the 
 justice and integrity of the federal government. By an implicit 
 (it is to be hoped not a useless) reliance upon its good faith, they 
 have stripped themselves of every other resource under heaven. 
 They have appealed to the highest tribunal in the land, and by 
 its solemn judgment these laws of Georgia are declared to be un 
 constitutional and void, as violating the laws and treaties of the 
 United States. There is no longer any question as to the 
 validity of their claims. The Supreme Court of the United 
 States, created by the federal constitution as the tribunal of 
 last resort, has decided in their favour, and they ask to be pro 
 tected in the land of their ancestors, from the violent invasion 
 of Georgia, according to the plain import of the treaties. With 
 
148 
 
 the solemn guaranty of the United States in their hands, they 
 demand the interposition of the national arm to save them from 
 degradation, exile, and death. 
 
 This appeal cannot be answered, by a reference to idle dis 
 tinctions between the powers of the state and federal govern 
 ments. The Indian affairs are a common concern. The faith 
 of the nation is plighted to them, and its character is pledged to 
 the world, that the Indian tribes within our limits shall be treated 
 with delicacy, kindness and humanity. The eye of Europe is 
 upon us, and we cannot escape from this high responsibility. 
 These legal distinctions and constitutional subtleties, repugnant 
 to the common sense, and unpropitious to the common necessi 
 ties of mankind, will be regarded as mere inventions for the 
 purpose of covering our participation in the plunder of the 
 aborigines. The world will not believe indeed it will not, that 
 our constitution interposes insuperable obstacles to the preserva 
 tion of national faith. The whole distinction will be regarded 
 as a mere pretence, infinitely more offensive to fair minds than 
 the open avowal of injustice. Far better would it be for the 
 President of the United States to give to the complaining 
 Cherokees the short answer of the Dey of Algiers to plundered 
 merchants asking redress-" Do you not know that my people 
 are a band of robbers, and that I am their captain ?" Far better, 
 and far more manly, would be this bold avowal, than a pretended 
 distinction, which, under an affected reverence for legal obser 
 vances and constitutional forms, abandons a helpless and de 
 pendent community to all the desolating consequences of arbi 
 trary power, stimulated to action by the most intense and craving 
 cupidity. 
 
 God forbid that the American people should sanction this dis 
 tinction. I do not fear that they will. They spring from a gene 
 rous stock of ancestors from men who hazarded all, and suf 
 fered all, through a steadfast adherence to principle. The faulty 
 part of their character does not savour of a spirit of selfish in 
 justice, or of grasping rapacity. It rather inclines them to the 
 opposite extremes. Their principles of government and of state 
 policy, are drawn from that great reservoir of jurisprudence 
 
149 
 
 established by their English ancestors, and enriched and liberal 
 ized by the free discussions and masculine understandings of 
 their own revolutionary fathers. These principles, their glory 
 and their protection at once an ornament and a safeguard 
 have sunk deep into the hearts of the people of the United 
 States. They are endeared to them by the associations of child 
 hood and the experience of maturity. They are the great results 
 of their past history the fences and muniments of their present 
 liberties and the pledges of a long career of future glory and 
 prosperity. They form the public sentiment of the country a 
 principle which, like gravitation, pervading and omnipotent, at 
 once supports and controls their political system. 
 
 As long as they remain unchanged and unchangeable, giving 
 aliment and life to public opinion ; as long as our government 
 shall continue to be the embodying of the sentiments of an en 
 lightened people the concentration of the opinions of a free, 
 educated, and Christian community, the House of Represen 
 tatives, with its awful power of impeachment bringing these 
 opinions into action, the Senate, the guardian of state sove 
 reignty and of national faith the body whose sanction gave ex 
 istence and value to these sacred guaranties, ancf the tribunal 
 before which all violations of these pledges must be arraigned ; 
 as long as these branches of our government shall continue to 
 be guided by the will of the nation, so long will our plighted 
 faith guard the rights of the Cherokees, and of all other de 
 pendants upon our justice, from the spoliations of rapacity, and 
 the iron hand of oppression. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 1839. 
 
 LOOKING back, with the eye of historical observation, a little 
 more than two centuries, and the country we now inhabit was 
 but one vast wilderness. The stormy Atlantic rolled its billows 
 upon a desolate coast, where a dense forest, coming down to 
 the ocean, and unbroken, except by the rivers which drained 
 this great continent, bore witness to the complete triumph of 
 uncultivated nature. This mighty wilderness of forest, prairie, 
 and lake, extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific its silence 
 disturbed only by the water-fall, or the crash of some decaying 
 monarch of the wood affording shelter for the wild beast, or 
 for the still wilder savage, who wandered through its mazes in 
 search of food. 
 
 At the eastern line of the horizon, we may discover a vessel 
 making for this solitary coast. It approaches, and, after a care 
 ful selection of a haven, a company of hardy men land upon 
 the verge of this wilderness. They are not mere adventurers 
 in search of gold ; nor have they come to pay a hasty and tem 
 porary visit to this new world. The shores which they wist 
 fully gaze upon are to be their permanent homes. These con 
 stitute the only country they now have. The habits of civiliza 
 tion they have brought with them, and the rudiments of civil and 
 social institutions, are engrafted upon their minds. All around 
 them is wilderness, and cultivated man is thus brought into direct 
 
152 
 
 association with uncultivated nature. The forest is to be sub 
 dued, and social, religious and political institutions are to be 
 established, to control and influence the people, who are des 
 tined to subject it to the uses of civilized man. 
 
 This is a brief description of the condition of the founders 
 of the American settlements, whether we look to the followers 
 of the chivalric and adventurous Smith ; the hardy Hollanders, 
 who established themselves here ; or the stern and enthusiastic 
 Puritans who landed at Plymouth. 
 
 In order to form accurate notions of their peculiar position in 
 the history of mankind, we must glance beyond the ocean to the 
 civilized world, with which they have for a time almost entirely 
 disconnected themselves. 
 
 Looking at the old continent, it is impossible not to perceive 
 a marked difference between the Northern and the other Eu 
 ropean governments. The former seem to have been founded 
 upon one comprehensive and uniform principle, and conse 
 quently have been less affected by the movements of modern 
 society. The governments simple and more absolute : education 
 confined to the nobility : and villienage still in full existence in 
 the North, all attest how comparatively small has been the 
 advance of those governments, and that they owe their origin 
 to a common source, the customs and institutions of the Scla- 
 vonian or Northern tribes. 
 
 The social institutions of middle and Southern Europe, on 
 the contrary, have been founded on the ruins of a pre-existent 
 state of civilization, and they are to be elucidated by reference 
 to their history and long established usage. In this particular 
 they resemble, as has been most accurately observed, the edi 
 fices of Italy and Greece at the present day. Their materials 
 have not been quarried out of the living rock ; but collected 
 from the scattered remains of the temples and dwellings of 
 ancient days. While the sterner and harsher features of the 
 political institutions of Northern Europe remind the observer 
 of the primitive formations of their granite mountains. 
 
 Hence, in examining into the theory of the governments of 
 Southern Europe, we are at once carried back to the era of the 
 
153 
 
 fall of the Imperial City ; for in the crumbling frame of the 
 Roman Empire, and in the fusion or amalgamation of the inva 
 ding barbarians with its conquered inhabitants, we are to look 
 for the elements of European civilization. 
 
 The policy of the imperial government was, to render the 
 provinces tributary and entirely dependent upon the capital. 
 Her servants and favourites were rewarded by provincial ap 
 pointments, in much the same manner as England now provides 
 for her decaying nobility, by giving to the younger scions of the 
 aristocracy some office in the colonies. The rights of peace 
 and war, of legislation, and of levying taxes, were taken from 
 the provinces to be exercised at Rome, and nothing was left to 
 them, but the powers of administering the laws of the emperor. 
 
 The Imperial Code, afterwards so celebrated as the civil law, 
 was extended over the whole empire, and was administered by 
 prefects and judges appointed at Rome, and generally citizens 
 of that city. 
 
 The maxim, that subjects had nothing to do with the govern 
 ment, was predominant in all parts of the system. They had 
 only to obey ; and the object of political institutions was not to 
 protect the subject from the tyranny of the ruler, but to enforce 
 justice, as between individual citizens, and to preserve order 
 and tranquillity. For this, these laws were admirably adapted, 
 but they provided no security for political rights. Regarding 
 the emperor as the controlling mind, and requiring unqualified 
 obedience from the subject, no provision was made for the im 
 provement and advancement of the mass of the community; 
 and from the necessity which man is under of advancing or 
 retrograding, the Roman Empire had thus early implanted the 
 principle of degeneracy, and of ultimate destruction. 
 
 This empire was broken up into various fragments, which, 
 in the course of time, were united under different heads, and 
 now form the existing kingdoms of Europe, by successive irrup 
 tions of the barbarous hordes from what historians call the 
 northern hive of nations. From the earliest antiquity, this por 
 tion of the globe had periodically sent forth its swarms of 
 hardy warriors, to invade the more favoured climes ; and we 
 
 T 
 
154 
 
 learn from the classic historians of Rome, as well as from those 
 who, in a degenerate style, recorded the events of her declining 
 years, that the invaders were accompanied by their wives and 
 children, and that they came with a determination to find a 
 country or a grave. 
 
 The first inquiry then is, what influence did the political 
 institutions of the empire exert in establishing the existing con 
 stitutions of Europe ? and for a solution of that inquiry, we 
 must ask, what was the political organization of the empire ? 
 It is hardly necessary to inform this audience, that this empire 
 was composed by the successive conquest of cities. Rome 
 itself was in the beginning merely a municipality ; and she ex 
 tended her sway over Italy and Greece, by overcoming rival 
 cities, which after the conquest merely acknowledged the 
 supremacy and authority of Rome, and were permitted to pre 
 serve their municipal organization. The whole shore of the 
 Mediterranean, from Byzantium to Carthage, was studded with 
 cities, and France and Spain were divided into small districts 
 of country, which were dependencies upon some large town 
 or city. It was by the conquest of these that the Imperial City 
 established her authority throughout Europe ; and when she 
 sought to extend her empire over the thinly settled countries 
 of Parthia, Scythia, and Germany, her political system proved 
 unequal to accompany the march of her legions. 
 
 As these dependent provinces preserved their municipal 
 organization, their connection was easily dissolved, as soon as 
 the military supremacy of the capital was at an end ; and 
 during the fifth century, the ascendancy of the northern hordes 
 being fully established, the western empire fell a victim to her 
 barbarous invaders. 
 
 The customs of the conquerors, like those of all warlike 
 savages, were simple, and their laws aimed chiefly to secure 
 military discipline, and an equitable distribution of plunder. 
 They brought with them, however, two principles of paramount 
 importance ; not only in giving them victory and power for the 
 time being, but in impelling the communities with which they 
 were about to unite into anew channel of exertion. The first 
 
155 
 
 was the feeling of personal independence, which characterized 
 the German and Vandalic tribes, and which was widely differ 
 ent from the kindred sentiment among the Greeks and Romans, 
 that led them to exult in their character as members of a poli 
 tical association, or citizens of a state. The other principle 
 was the institution of military patronage, or the attachment of 
 the followers to certain leaders, by means of which the parties 
 gained the advantages of combined force, without assuming 
 any general obligations to society. 
 
 After achieving an easy conquest over the degenerate inhabi 
 tants of the empire, they proceeded to appropriate the country 
 to their own use. This appropriation was accompanied with 
 the violence and confusion ordinarily attendant upon a forcible 
 conquest, and for many years all the component parts of society 
 seemed to be resolved into chaotic disorder, and Europe was 
 given up to the dominion of rapacity and force. At length 
 something like system and order began to appear. The land 
 was divided into districts, over each of which a chieftain was 
 placed, called a count, to collect the revenue, and to lead the 
 military contingent in war. Their followers were rewarded by 
 smaller portions of land, which they held in propriety on con 
 dition of serving in defence of their feudal lord. Several of these 
 counties were placed under the supervision of a more powerful 
 chieftain or duke. These in their turn owed allegiance to the 
 king under whom the conquest had been achieved, and from 
 whom their title to their possessions was supposed to be derived. 
 
 The Romans, or original inhabitants, were in some cases re 
 duced to servitude ; in others they were permitted to farm lands 
 of their conquerors, and. in some favoured instances, they pos 
 sessed them in propriety. 
 
 They were, however, every where held in less estimation in 
 the eye of the law than their warlike masters, and no provision 
 was made for their advancement, or for their participation in 
 the government. That was still of a military character, and 
 its laws looked more to the reward of valour than to the pre 
 servation of civil or political rights. The military commander 
 and his chief followers constituted a favoured class. For the 
 
156 
 
 preservation of their privileges they established a code, deno 
 minated the Feudal System, in which the two principles, to 
 which 1 have referred, remarkably predominate. 
 
 According to this system, which was a primary process in 
 establishing the European governments, every thing assumed 
 the relation of lord and vassal, and all looked to a common lord 
 or sovereign. Even the municipalities, which had survived the 
 shock of barbarian violence, and remained almost as the sole 
 relics of the empire, were compelled to own some feudal lord. 
 To the sovereign, however, the common head, all ostensibly 
 submitted, as the source of authority, whether judicial, legislative, 
 or executive. In the performance of these political duties he 
 was assisted by his chief officers, as forming a kind of council, 
 and their decrees, which at first were judicial proceedings, 
 finally assumed the authority of laws, and served as the basis 
 of European jurisprudence. 
 
 In that age of violence, however, the authority of the sove 
 reign was not always implicitly respected. Each chieftain had 
 a numerous following, and choosing for his residence some 
 elevated spot, he constructed his castle, and held himself 
 equally ready to aid his sovereign against foreign invaders, or 
 to resist him, in case he encroached upon his own peculiar 
 privileges. 
 
 " Might makes right" was the maxim of the age, and the 
 law of force could only be executed by the strongest. Hence 
 the necessity of associating in the government the feudal barons, 
 and the reason of their great and peculiar privileges. The 
 nobility formed a real body in the state, and had they been 
 governed by one mind, the real power in the European govern 
 ments would have been vested in the aristocracy, and the mon- 
 archs would have been merely the nominal head of the state, 
 without authority. The nobles had valour, skill, landed posses 
 sions, and warlike followers, attached to their lords from early 
 associations and by common dangers. 
 
 The monarch was, it is true, the supreme chieftain, had more 
 extensive estates, and a more numerous band of retainers ; but 
 these advantages would not have enabled him to withstand 
 any extensive combination of the nobility. Their own divisions, 
 
157 
 
 the aid of the church, and of the burgesses, or the third estate, 
 and a fortunate combination of circumstances, were all neces 
 sary to give the ascendancy to the monarch, and to enable him 
 to triumph over his refractory dependents. This was finally 
 effected, after bloody and protracted contests, marked by many 
 vicissitudes, and lasting through a series of generations. 
 
 Thus in England, the crown was more than once endangered 
 by the power of the great Earl of Northumberland ; and all 
 admirers of the English drama are familiar with the name of 
 Nevil, Earl of Warwick " the setter up and puller down of 
 kings." 
 
 So, too, in France, the long and dubious wars between the 
 crown and the Dukes of Normandy and Burgundy, and the 
 Counts of Flanders and Brittany, too well attest the power of 
 these refractory nobility. 
 
 To reduce these independent chieftains to the rank of sub 
 jects, the monarchs were obliged to call in the aid of the hur- 
 gesses, or inhabitants of the cities ; and to ensure their zealous 
 support, their interests were enlisted on the side of the crown, 
 by granting to them a charter confirming their municipal privi 
 leges. The cities, as I have already remarked, preserved their 
 municipal organization from the wreck of the empire, and the 
 victorious barbarians, although enforcing their supremacy, and 
 occasionally exacting tribute, chose for their own residence the 
 country, as more congenial to their taste and habits. The bur 
 gesses, in time, consequently acquired the sentiment of inde 
 pendence, which they found prevailing among the nobility, and 
 fortifying their towns, occasionally evinced the same disposition 
 to refer their rights to the arbitrirnent of force. Disputes con 
 stantly broke out between them and their feudal lords, and as 
 one or the other party appealed to their common sovereign, a 
 community of interest began to grow up between the kings and 
 the cities. In the contest with his nobles the monarch, there 
 fore, resorted to the burgesses for aid, and as the crown ac 
 quired power, the third estate was also elevated in the scale of 
 society, and the nobility proportionably depressed. In this con 
 flict between the monarchical and aristocratic interests origi 
 nated the popular or democratic interest. 
 
158 
 
 The church was also found on the side of the crown. In 
 such lawless limes it was natural that the church, in its anxiety 
 to repress licentiousness and violence, should lend its aid to 
 strengthen the authority which was appointed to restrain the 
 turbulent and disorderly. The Catholic clergy, too, found their 
 temporal views better promoted by an alliance with the king. 
 
 The church, therefore, imparted a spiritual sanction to the 
 regal authority, and was repaid by being allowed to share in 
 the temporalities of the crown. 
 
 As these disorganized elements settled into something like 
 system, certain modifications took place. The councils, which 
 at first were composed entirely of the nobility, were enlarged 
 by the admission of the higher orders of the clergy, and the 
 delegates or the municipal officers of the more important towns. 
 
 They went by various names, as the Parliament, in England ; 
 the States General or Provincial, in France and Holland ; the 
 Diet, in Poland and Germany ; and the Cortez, in the Penin 
 sula; and met, not periodically, but occasionally, when some 
 special difficulty required a legislative remedy. 
 
 The laws promulgated in these assemblies were construed 
 and applied by officers appointed by the king; although the 
 Courts Baron of England, and the many local tribunals in that 
 country, and in the continental kingdoms, fully demonstrate, 
 that the nobility still maintained an independence of the head 
 of the state, altogether incompatible with the existence of any 
 settled and regular system of jurisprudence. 
 
 Under the influence of these causes, which were common to 
 all the divisions of the Roman Empire, the political institutions 
 of Europe were established ; and although they were modified 
 by the peculiar character of the different nations, by their cus 
 toms and other causes, which there is not space to detail, the 
 same general results were produced. A number of monarchies 
 were erected on the ruins of the Roman Empire, in which the 
 political power of the government was vested in the king ; but 
 his authority was disputed both by the nobility and the priests, 
 and it was solely maintained by availing himself of the mutual 
 jealousy of the various orders in the state. The basis was 
 
159 
 
 feudal. The monarch was at the head of the government, as the 
 source of honour and authority ; and the clergy striving to impart 
 a spiritual sanction to histitle,,in the belief that they thus strength 
 ened their claim to dispose of earthly crowns, as the vicegerents 
 of the Deity ; the nobility, with great and undefined privileges, 
 and substantial power to enforce them ; the cities acknowledging 
 feudal dependence upon some neighbouring lord, but exercising 
 many sovereign powers ; and the great mass of the agricultural 
 population holding property and liberty entirely at the mercy of 
 their superiors ; and even the burgesses claiming civil rights by 
 virtue of some royal grant or charter. Ignorant of their own 
 strength,without the means of general communication with each 
 other, and brought up in habits of dependence and obedience, 
 the lower classes remained in subjection to the higher orders of 
 the state, without questioning their right of control. Even when 
 some intolerable oppression drove them to rebellion, as in the 
 insurrection of the peasantry, or the Jacquerie, of France ; of 
 Jack Cade, in England ; and of Massaniello, at Naples ; it was 
 rather a sudden ebullition of fury, than a systematic effort to 
 improve their condition ; and temporary success only served to 
 demonstrate their unfitness for self-government. The invariable 
 result consequently was, the restoration of the aristocracy, 
 which, rude and uneducated as its members were, was better 
 calculated to preserve the community from anarchy, than the 
 serfs and peasants of the middle ages. 
 
 The third estate by degrees, however, obtained power and 
 influence ; and as civilization advanced, it began to acquire 
 weight in the social system, and held itself ready to make its 
 strength felt in the affairs of Europe. 
 
 As a preliminary to the distinct and independent appearance 
 of that power in the state, it was essential that the power of 
 the nobility should be so diminished, as to prevent their numbers 
 and force from crippling the action of the popular principle. 
 This was effected at about the same period, towards the end of 
 the fifteenth century, by the rapid growth of the power of the 
 crown in the several kingdoms of Europe, and the concentra- 
 
160 
 
 tion of the authority of the state in the hands of their respect 
 ive monarchs. Thus, in Germany, the house of Austria acquired 
 the imperial diadem, and by rendering it, to all practical pur 
 poses, hereditary, caused monarchy to gain the ascendant in 
 the empire. The crowns of Castile and Arragon were united 
 by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabel ; and their power 
 enabled them to complete the subjugation of the Moors, and to 
 unite Spain under one head. In England, the great baronial 
 families were broken down by the wars between the rival fami 
 lies of York and Lancaster, and Henry the Seventh and his 
 son became virtually despotic. In France, the standing body 
 of troops, which Charles the Seventh was compelled to keep 
 on foot to defend his kingdom against England, imparted new 
 power to the crown, and enabled its possessor to pursue a 
 steady policy in increasing its authority. This was done by his 
 successor, Lewis Eleventh, and the opportune descent of Bur 
 gundy upon a female during his reign, enabled that sagacious 
 and unscrupulous monarch to reduce the nobility to a state of 
 abject dependence, without calling in the commons to his aid. 
 France thus became a pure unmixed monarchy ; and the mon 
 archical principle predominated throughout Europe. Partial 
 causes, however, operated in particular kingdoms, which im 
 parted peculiar features to their respective constitutions. Thus, 
 in France, the chivalric feeling of the nobility, or what Montes 
 quieu calls the principle of a monarchy, the sense of honour 
 among the aristocracy, prevented that class from being reduced 
 to the level of the commonalty. 
 
 They were deprived of the political power, which had been 
 vested in their order, as a body ; but their ideas of personal 
 distinction remained unchanged, and they preserved their pecu 
 liar privileges as individuals belonging to a superior class of 
 citizens. While this then in some degree served to check the 
 despotism of the king, it tended still more to curtail the rights 
 of the people. 
 
 In Spain, from an early period of its history, the authority of 
 the nobility seemed to have been greater even than in France ; 
 and the Cortez, which, in Castile, Arragon, and their dependent 
 
161 
 
 kingdoms, seemed to have been coeval with their constitutions; 
 were more frequently convoked, and exercised a more marked 
 influence in their affairs, than the legislative assemblies of the 
 other continental kingdoms. 
 
 The representatives or municipal officers of the cities made 
 their appearance in those bodies at an early period. The ex 
 istence of the Moors as a hostile nation, of different religion and 
 complexion, in the heart of the kingdom, compelled the kings 
 to respect the privileges of the nobility, and to yield to the 
 claims of the cities, which, as affording a refuge to the Span 
 iards against their Moorish enemies, were both numerous and 
 powerful. The Spanish constitution would probably have ex 
 hibited a monarch with comparatively limited prerogatives, had 
 not the crowns of Naples, Sicily, the Low Countries, Germany 
 and Spain, been united on the head of Charles Fifth, and that 
 at a period when the treasures of the new world rendered the 
 crown, to a great extent, independent of the legislature for its 
 supplies. 
 
 This empire, with the exception of his Austrian possessions, 
 was entrusted to his son, Philip the Second, bigotted, cold, and 
 despotic in his disposition, and of unrelenting determination. 
 With these qualities, and aided by all the powers of the church 
 and the newly established inquisition, he entered upon a cru 
 sade against the liberties of his subjects. In Spain he was suc 
 cessful. The people were naturally indolent, and the new 
 world opened a field for all adventurers, who might have resisted 
 the usurpations of the monarch, had they not been allured to 
 the Dorados of America in search of honour and wealth. 
 Hence, after a feeble contest, the whole power of the state was 
 vested in the crown ; and the government, from being a limited 
 and occasionally an elective monarchy, controlled by a Cortez, 
 in which the three estates met, and where they exercised 
 supreme power, even over the sovereign himself, became an 
 absolute monarchy, restrained only by the chivalric feeling and 
 haughty independence of the nobility. 
 
 In the Netherlands, on the contrary, his arbitrary designs 
 were frustrated. Here was a people not merely accustomed, 
 
102 
 
 but compelled, by the nature of the country, to severe and un 
 remitting labour. The feudal nobility did not find in the Low 
 Countries the same motive to an early appropriation of a ter 
 ritory, which at best was but partially secured from the ocean, 
 and which required constant exertion to preserve it for the use 
 of man. Here, therefore, the arts and manufactures were early 
 established, and the Netherlands were occupied svith an indus 
 trious but hardy population of artisans and manners. Hence 
 the common people were not so degraded, when compared with 
 the nobility ; and the Flemish and Dutch cities were early noted 
 for a pertinacious defence of their privileges against the en 
 croachments of their rulers. 
 
 The doctrines of the Reformation, too, at this time, were 
 diffusing themselves among the common people, and contributed 
 to more rapidly develope the popular principle, that had ap 
 peared in the Netherlands. These doctrines, which recognised 
 the right of private judgment, in questioning the infallibility of 
 the church, prostrated one of the firmest supporters of the 
 throne. Reason was called in to the aid of the popular cause. 
 Having been taught to judge for itself in matters of conscience, 
 it was no great stride to inquire into the sufficiency of reasons 
 of state. A being with an immortal soul, accountable for the 
 deeds done in the body, was entitled to question the propriety 
 of the commands of his political ruler. Blind obedience could 
 no longer be exacted from one, who rejected the doctrine of 
 absolution, and who held himself responsible to the King of 
 Kings. He was obligated to square his conduct with a law 
 from above, and resistance to the unlawful commands of unjust 
 rulers was inculcated as a maxim of religion. These principles 
 soon brought the inhabitants of the Low Countries into collision 
 with the government of Philip, and after a bloody war. that 
 continued through more than one generation of men ; Spain 
 was compelled to relinquish her claims, and the freedom of 
 Holland was established upon the lasting foundation of the 
 Reformed Church. A government was formed, with a member 
 of the Orange family at its head. The conduct of the foreign 
 relations was entrusted to a representative body, called the 
 
163 
 
 States General ; but the real power was vested in the provincial 
 states. 
 
 The government of this new power, which was called the Con 
 federation of the Seven Provinces, was feeble and inefficient, and 
 incapable of preserving its independence, except through the 
 jealousy of the surrounding kingdoms. Still it promoted the 
 happiness of the community, and presented the first instance of 
 a government instituted for the benefit of the people. 
 
 Law, as administered by judicial tribunals, was substituted 
 for the will of arbitrary rulers, and private rights were secured 
 by an adherence to certain definite principles. The want of 
 intelligence in the mass of the community prevented the lower 
 classes from being the depository of political power, which was 
 entrusted to the syndics and burgomasters ; but these were 
 directly connected with the labouring classes, with whom they 
 were in the habit of daily intercourse, and were in fact their 
 natural and proper representatives. 
 
 This was the first instance of the predominancy of the popu 
 lar principle among what may be regarded as the European 
 family of kingdoms ; for the Swiss Confederacy was too isolated, 
 and exercised too little influence with its neighbours, to be 
 taken into consideration. The establishment of the liberties 
 of the people of England took place at a later period, and was 
 indebted to the same cause, the influence of the Protestant 
 religion, for its success. 
 
 The Magna-Charta, so often called the palladium of British 
 freedom, was merely intended to guard the barons against the 
 encroachments of the crown. Certain provisions in that in 
 strument are indeed general in their expressions, and would 
 seem to have been intended for the protection of all classes ; 
 but in that rude age the villeins or rustics were of too little 
 consideration to be made the motive for limiting a phrase of 
 general import : and the only article expressly for their benefit, 
 by which their agricultural implements were exempted from 
 distress for royal fines, was really for the benefit of their lords., 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to extract from the voluminous re 
 cords of English history, proofs of this statement. From the 
 
164 
 
 earliest periods down to the reign of the First Charles, English 
 monarchs evinced an entire disregard of the boasted privileges 
 of Englishmen. 
 
 Before that time the Star Chamber, acting as a court of ex 
 traordinary jurisdiction, had enforced the pretensions of the 
 higher classes by such penalties and laws as it thought proper 
 to adopt. In his reign the Presbyterians, holding similar opin 
 ions to those for whose sake our Puritan ancestors had just 
 before left their native shores, came into collision with the head 
 of the English Church ; and a refusal to pay taxes imposed 
 solely by the crown was a consequence of the quarrel. A ma 
 jority of the judges, when the question was brought before 
 them by Hampden, sustained the pretensions of the crown ; but 
 the decision was subjected to severe criticism, and the king 
 being compelled by the Scotch rebellion to convene a Parlia 
 ment, the House of Commons overruled the judgment of the 
 court ; extorted from the crown a surrender of its claims to im 
 pose taxes without their consent ; and thus rendered it necessary 
 to resort for the periodical supplies to Parliament, where the 
 popular branch was held to have the sole power over money 
 bills. This branch had now a recognised existence in the con 
 stitution, and was clothed with power to curb the ambition of 
 the court. It had, however, in its composition a strong aristo 
 cratic tendency, and, by means of the borough system, it soon 
 became an engine of the aristocracy, who obtained a complete 
 control over the House of Commons. Hence there was not so 
 much gained for the mass of the people by the constitution of 
 Parliament, as by the checks provided against the exercise of 
 arbitrary power in the bill of rights, and in the habeas corpus 
 act, which have been justly regarded as the bulwark of British 
 freedom. The whole political power was in practice entrusted 
 to the aristocracy, and the liberties of the rest of the commu 
 nity were secured only as dependent upon them. 
 
 Parliament was, according to the phraseology of the common 
 law, omnipotent, and was competent to modify not only the 
 laws, but even the constitution of the kingdom ; and this body 
 was entirely controlled by the nobility and landed aristocracy. 
 
165 
 
 The only security of British freedom, therefore, was in pub 
 lic opinion ; and the history of that country at various times, 
 and especially during the Scotch and Irish rebellions, and the 
 French Revolution, has shown how insufficient a safeguard, that 
 can furnish against an aristocracy constitutionally invested with 
 the sovereign powers of the state. 
 
 Among the northern kingdoms of Europe, as Russia, Sweden, 
 Denmark, and the Germanic powers, the popular principle did 
 not so distinctly appear. 
 
 They did not form a part of the old Roman Empire, and 
 consequently were not influenced by some of the elements 
 w r hich so materially modified the institutions established by 
 their migrating countrymen in middle and southern Europe. 
 
 The fusion of their social elements is not even now accom 
 plished ; and at the era of which I am speaking, the action of pub 
 lic opinion and of the popular principle, had made no impression 
 upon the original character of the governments of the Northern 
 powers. Their legislative councils were composed of the more 
 powerful nobility, who occasionally, but not at stated periods, 
 aided the monarchs in making laws for the realm ; and they 
 were rather representatives of the military contingent, or force 
 of the state, than of its civil interests. The legislation partook 
 of the rude character of the age, and was a mixture of the 
 Sclavonian and feudal customs, somewhat modified by the prin 
 ciples of the civil law, which were fast extending themselves 
 over all Continental Europe, and giving a marked character to 
 its jurisprudence. The legislation and the government, how 
 ever, resembled those of the more southern kingdoms, in those 
 peculiar features which characterize the political institutions of 
 Europe, and serve to contrast them with those of our own 
 country. They looked to the preservation of the privileges of 
 the favoured classes as a primary object, and upon the general 
 welfare and popular rights as of too slight importance to be 
 considered in establishing the constitution of a state. 
 
 These were considered as merely dependent upon the will 
 of the crown, or of the aristocracy, and might be extended or 
 resumed at the pleasure of the sovereign. 
 
160 
 
 In this view of the governments of Europe, as they existed 
 before the American Revolution, I have not specially adverted 
 to what are, with great looseness, denominated the Italian 
 Republics. These governments partook of the aristocratic 
 character of the political institutions around them ; but they 
 were without a monarchical head, and thus were rendered more 
 liable to civil feuds and domestic dissensions. 
 
 Belonging to the central portion of the old empire, and longer 
 accustomed to municipal government, the Italian cities pre 
 served more of their ancient institutions and a greater degree 
 of independence than the cities of the other provinces. These 
 municipal governments were administered by the more influen 
 tial citizens, and although sometimes elective, there was no 
 where anything like an instructed or enlightened popular mind 
 acting upon the government. The mass of the community was 
 too ignorant to act either in establishing the government, or in 
 supervising its administration, except by impulse. The feudal 
 aristocracy, who in Italy did not preserve the same degree of 
 solitary independence as in the adjoining kingdoms, took up their 
 abode in the cities. As citizens, however, they could not brook 
 an equality of rights ; and by their power, their pride, and their 
 ambition, they kept the towns in a constant turmoil, and using 
 the lower orders as their instruments? by inflaming their pas 
 sions against their opponents, they drove their antagonists, as 
 either party alternately prevailed, from their native cities. The 
 exiles, despairing of being restored to their homes, would im 
 plore the intervention of some foreign power, and Italy thus 
 became a prey to her more powerful neighbours, and was for 
 centuries the battle ground of Europe. The political constitu 
 tions of that classic land were too unsettled to be used as illus 
 trations of any position, except of the danger of small commu 
 nities existing under independent governments. 
 
 In the other European kingdoms, the monarchical principle 
 had now acquired a decided ascendancy, except in Holland, 
 where the government was, to a certain extent, popular. 
 
 It was now, however, destined to come in collision with a prin 
 ciple, which had before shown occasional symptoms of hostility; 
 
167 
 
 but which now began to assume a consistent shape, and to aim at 
 a definite and recognised supremacy in the state. I refer to the 
 democratic principle the principle which looks to the welfare 
 and happiness of the mass of society, as the only legitimate end 
 of government. 
 
 Men had become tired of being pack horses for the privileged 
 orders. The public mind the general intellect, had been ex 
 cited and quickened by the master spirits that appeared in 
 Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. 
 
 Vasques de Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and 
 opened the way to the East Indies. 
 
 Columbus had boldly penetrated the waste of western waters, 
 and informed the stirring spirits of the age, that beyond that 
 until then impassable gulph, there was a world whose fertility 
 and wealth far outshone all that poets had ever imagined of 
 " Ormus and of Ind." 
 
 Galileo, by the invention of the telescope, had subjected the 
 heavenly bodies to the use of man : had given a new and bound 
 less field to his aspiring mind, not as to the shepherds of Chaldee 
 and Arabia, merely as a theme of wonder and contemplation ; 
 but as the objects of practical science ; and by his mighty magic, 
 had brought down the stars to serve as land-marks to the daring 
 mariner in the midst of the pathless ocean. 
 
 Martin Luther and his coadjutors had boldly assailed the in 
 fallibility of the Pope. They had roused subjects to think and 
 rulers to act in behalf of the rights of conscience, and thus led 
 the way in the insurrection of the European mind against the 
 intellectual tyranny of the church. 
 
 Francis Bacon, than whose no greater name stands on the 
 annals of learning, had commenced a new era in science, by estab 
 lishing it upon the sure foundation of observation and experience : 
 and finally the invention of printing, that mightiest engine of 
 human improvement, by the general diffusion of knowledge, and 
 the multiplication of books, had secured the productions of 
 human intellect from the corroding tooth of time, effectually 
 prevented any retrograding in the march of mind ; and erected 
 an eternal bulwark against the return of barbarism and ignorance. 
 
168 
 
 Such \vastheconditionofthe European world, when, impelled 
 by various motives, but all closely connected with the excited 
 spirit of the age, our ancestors left the shores of Christendom to 
 found the colonies of North America. 
 
 Whether w look to the eastern, the middle, or the southern 
 states, we find the first settlers all animated by a thorough de 
 termination to shake off the shackles of antiquated prejudices, 
 and to establish their social institutions upon the new principle 
 which had begun to make its appearance in some of the govern 
 ments of Europe. 
 
 In the southern colonies, and in this state, the colonists were 
 commercial adventurers, and their laws were, of course, tho 
 roughly imbued with those principles of equality and justice, 
 which are essential to the prosperity of a trading community. 
 
 The colony of Maryland was composed of Catholics, who 
 had been taught in the school of persecution the duty of charity 
 and toleration ; and the pacific followers of Penn, who spread 
 themselves through Pennsylvania and New-Jersey, had learned 
 from the precepts of their founder, to call no man master, but to 
 look upon all men as their brethren. 
 
 Among the puritans of New-England, however, are to be 
 found the qualities and principles that exercised a controlling 
 influence in forming the character and shaping the destiny of 
 the American people. 
 
 The extraordinary sect that founded the colonies of Plymouth 
 and Massachusetts, were not only Protestants in religion, but 
 they were dissenters from the political faith of blind obedience, 
 which was then professed by the English nation. In their 
 struggles against the religious supremacy of the crown, they 
 were often tempted to question its temporal authority. When 
 they were dragged before the council and thence to prison, it 
 was not surprising that they should, in their hearts, throw off 
 allegiance to a power which tortured the body, in order to 
 enslave the mind. 
 
 They were, in truth, ripe for the resistance which, in the next 
 generation, was offered by the stern Presbyterians to the usur 
 pations of the crown, and would then have led the way to a 
 
169 
 
 commonwealth, had the nation been prepared to second their 
 efforts. 
 
 Their religious opinions, too, peculiarly qualified them for the 
 task to which they had devoted themselves. 
 
 Their system of faith was one of self-denial, humiliation and 
 prayer. It rendered every passion of the human heart sub 
 servient to a vehement desire of knowing and executing the will 
 of Providence. All the temporal motives, ambition, avarice, 
 self-love, all were swallowed up in this absorbing feeling : and 
 yielding to its influence, they embarked with their families upon 
 the tempestuous ocean, and turned their backs upon their native 
 country, with a fixed determination never to return. 
 
 Upon landing on the wild and barren shore, which their 
 bark first touched, how striking and original was the situation 
 in which they were placed. They had notlefttheir own country 
 like the colonists of the ancient republics, with the countenance 
 and under the protection of the parent country ; nor had they 
 come to America like the commercial adventurers whom modern 
 Europe has so often sent to the East and West. India settlements. 
 They had deliberately and permanently adopted another country. 
 There was no prior governments, upon the ruins of which their 
 own political institutions were to be erected. The wilderness 
 was before them, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; and 
 here was intelligent, educated, and civilized man, about to found 
 a nation, whose social institutions were to be established upon 
 the basis of freedom and equality. 
 
 The colonists had been taught by bitter personal experience, 
 that the political institutions they had fled from, were not fitted 
 to promote the happiness of the mass of the community. They 
 had no inducement to copy the frame of their government, from 
 those, which at home, were overgrown with the abuses of anti 
 quity. Privileged orders had no charms for them. They were 
 all equal in rank, in sufferings, and in sacrifices. They were 
 not compelled from their relations with those around them, to 
 erect a feudal system, or a magnificent hierarchy in the Ame 
 rican wilderness. All this was indissolubly connected in their 
 minds with imprisonment, persecution and exile. 
 
I70f 
 
 But they were placed here in a new country, where a virgin 
 soil offered its treasures to their industry, with all the arts of 
 civilization and the lights of science, possessing all the experi 
 ence which the failures in governments for four thousand years 
 could teach, and free from the motives and interests that have 
 imparted the principle of corruption and decay to the social 
 institutions of other countries. In the vigour of youth, and 
 unshackled by prejudice, they commenced their course from the 
 goal which the nations of Europe had only partially attained 
 after centuries of exertion. 
 
 The popular principle the will of the majority was recog 
 nized as the fundamental principle of the government of the 
 new colony, and it was inculcated, as a primary duty of govern 
 ment, to cause general instruction to be diffused among the 
 members of the rising generation, in order that the enlightened 
 will of an educated community might control the policy of the 
 government. * 
 
 In all the North American settlements, whether founded for 
 commercial purposes, or to serve as an asylum to those who 
 had left the old world for conscience sake, the colonists were 
 all equal in rank. Subordination there was ; for without it no 
 enterprise can be successfully prosecuted ; but it was voluntary 
 obedience, or such as resulted from the laws adopted by the 
 common consent of the new community. It was not a subor 
 dination of classes, established by law or custom, (often so 
 much more powerful than law,) which conferred upon a par 
 ticular order of men peculiar privileges, because their ancestors 
 served under Clovis, or came in with William the Conqueror. 
 The colonists were all equal in rank, and of the same class of 
 society. How unlike the condition of Europe in any stage of 
 its progress, from the barbarous institutions of feudalism to the 
 civilized governments of the nineteenth century. There were 
 no cities nor municipalities, with rights and privileges derived 
 from a pre-existent state of society. There were no feudal 
 tenures to be granted, nor any feudal duties to be performed, 
 for the purpose of sustaining their social institutions against 
 the hostility of the old inhabitants of a country occupied by 
 conquest. There was no expensive ecclesiastical establish- 
 
171 
 
 ment, whose support constituted a perpetual burden upon the 
 agricultural portion of the community. There was no hereditary 
 monarch, with all the costly paraphernalia of a court, nor any 
 privileged orders, to be maintained by exertions "wrung from 
 the hard hands of peasants" by any indirection. The soil was 
 not burdened with tithes nor with taxes, nor fettered nor tied 
 up by entails, long trusts and intricate family settlements. It 
 was all wild as the Deity had created it, and civilized man had 
 now come to take possession of this rich inheritance, and to 
 extend over it the social institutions of an educated and Chris 
 tian community, upon the broad and natural basis of freedom 
 and equality. This, however, was not to be done by military 
 conquest. The wilderness was to be subdued, but it was to be 
 subdued by labour. The treasure which was hidden in its 
 bosom was to be brought to light only by industry, and the ne 
 cessity of their condition imposed upon them laborious and 
 simple habits as indispensable to their existence. 
 
 Situated as the colonists were, idlers could not be tolerated, 
 and he stood first among them whose qualities rendered him 
 most essential to their prosperity. The form of government 
 was therefore necessarily elective, and at first purely demo 
 cratic, the whole community consulting and deciding upon the 
 course proper to be adopted in any emergency. 
 
 In the commercial settlements there was a royal governor, 
 and sometimes these governors manifested an arbitrary dispo 
 sition ; but it is so difficult to sustain power unreasonably exer 
 cised in a new settlement, and the settlers so often evinced 
 their determination to make the governors conform to the gene 
 ral will, that even in the royal and proprietary colonies, they 
 were constantly obliged to consult public feeling ; and at the 
 first establishment of the settlements, its members formed rather 
 a voluntary association of adventurers, than a community sub 
 ject to regular government. 
 
 In the eastern colonies they were still more popular. The 
 governors there were elected by the colonists themselves, and 
 in the colony established at Plymouth, (the earliest, and in all 
 important particulars the model of the New-England settle 
 ments,) the colonists, upon landing, entered into a written social 
 
172 
 
 compact, (the first the world ever saw,) by which it was agreed, 
 that the will of the majority should be the law of the colony. 
 They then chose a governor from among themselves, and with 
 out the sanction of a royal charter, they laid the foundation of 
 their popular institutions on that wild New-England shore, with 
 the canopy of heaven for a covering, and four thousand miles 
 of ocean flowing between them and the abode of civilized man. 
 If we recur to the manner in which this colony extended itself, 
 we shall see the reason why the democratic principles, which 
 predominated in the establishment of its government, lost none 
 of their strength and influence as the settlements became more 
 numerous. 
 
 As the domestic relations of all the colonies were peaceful 
 among themselves, whenever any number of colonists intended 
 to found a new settlement, they chose some suitable spot, and 
 cutting down the forest, commenced erecting their humble 
 dwellings, with their own hands, for the protection of their 
 families. Having established the few simple laws that were 
 necessary for the maintenance of good order, some of the oldest 
 and ablest of their number were appointed by common consent 
 to enforce them. These were called the selectmen of the settle 
 ment, a title well known in the eastern states, and were annu 
 ally elected, as they are at the present day, and constituted the 
 municipal authorities of all the New-England towns. 
 
 To preserve them against the savage tribes, who were then 
 formidable, both from their numbers and hostile disposition, 
 every person able to bear arms was required to perform mili 
 tary duty ; and their officers were chosen in the same primitive 
 mode the soldiers electing those who were to command them. 
 
 Their church organization was upon the same popular foun 
 dation, each society choosing its ow r n pastor by a majority of 
 the votes of the congregation, and responsible to the rest of the 
 community only through the medium of public opinion. In this 
 manner the whole system of government, political, military and 
 ecclesiastical, was rendered popular and familiar. The people 
 were accustomed from their infancy to self-government, and the 
 system of representation and of political accountability, was 
 
173 
 
 thus universally arid familiarly practised from the first settle* 
 ment of the country. Each distinct town was to many pur* 
 poses an independent community, and all its members were 
 thus early indoctrinated in the principles of popular government. 
 There was another institution peculiar to the eastern settle 
 ments, of paramount importance in preserving such a govern 
 ment from the fate to which all other governments, founded 
 upon a popular basis, have been hurried ; and to its early esta 
 blishment may be fairly attributed much of the success of our 
 political institutions. I allude to the public establishment of com 
 mon schools. In those colonies the principle was early adopted 
 and constantly maintained, that it is the duty of the government 
 to provide for the instruction of the children of all its citizens. 
 Scarcely was the settlement established, and relieved from the 
 necessity of struggling for existence, when the Legislature of 
 the Plymouth Colony ordered, that a grammar school should be 
 established in each township in the government, and that twelve 
 pounds in each town should be annually raised by a tax, for its 
 maintenance. Those sagacious and self-denying men were 
 resolved, that the lights of science and knowledge, which they 
 had brought from their ancient homes, should not be extin 
 guished in the new world, and they determined, that what is 
 elsewhere left to charity or to chance should here be secured 
 by law. Knowing that their government was based upon the 
 public will, they sought to preserve it by informing the public 
 mind, and inspiring the salutary and conservative principle of 
 virtue and knowledge at an early age. We ought not to omit, 
 as a circumstance which also had a marked influence upon the 
 character of our political institutions, that the chief property 
 of the whole community consisted of real estate, and that their 
 situation required a division of the lands among its members. 
 The right of primogeniture was soon practically abolished, and 
 estates were divided among the children of the intestate. The 
 consequence of this was, a great equality of wealth, and the 
 soil of the country was divided into small freeholds, all occu 
 pied by persons equal in rank, and competent by early instruc 
 tion, and eligible by law, to participate in its government. In 
 
174 
 
 this manner the political institutions of this country were 
 formed ; and although the British government soon extended 
 her sovereignty over the colonies, it was merely nominal, 
 except so far as its legislation affected their commercial rela 
 tions. Whenever it was extended to other subjects, it excited 
 discontent, and it was easy to foresee, that the colonists would 
 never be satisfied with any thing less than popular governments 
 established on this side of the Atlantic. Indeed, it may be 
 safely asserted, that the Puritans, who settled in the Eastern 
 Provinces, never contemplated any connection with England, 
 implying submission on their part, and that they always re 
 garded any interference with them as usurpation. We find 
 Massachusetts, for instance, in 1635, shortly after its first settle 
 ment, upon its being reported that a general government for 
 the colonies had been projected by the crown, resolving, that if 
 such a governor were sent, the colony ought not to accept him, 
 but to defend its lawful possessions. And not long afterwards 
 that same colony took the lead in forming a confederacy, under 
 the title of the United Colonies of New-England, with the view 
 of resisting the encroachments of the Dutch settlers of New- 
 Amsterdam. About the same time she began to coin money ; 
 formed leagues with foreign powers, without the consent of 
 England ; disputed the right of the British to fish upon her 
 shores ; permitted no appeals from the colonial courts, and re 
 fused to exercise jurisdiction in the name of the Commonwealth 
 of England. Connecticut followed closely in her footsteps, 
 and a spirit of independence was thus early implanted, which 
 ultimately proved a great safeguard to the privileges of the 
 colonists. 
 
 Immediately upon the restoration of Charles the Second, 
 measures were taken to introduce a new system of government 
 into the colonies, in order to curb their aspirations for inde 
 pendence. Commissioners were sent over to examine into 
 the state of affairs, and the General Court of Massachusetts, 
 with characteristic spirit, prevented the reading of the commis 
 sion by the sound of the trumpet. They were finally compelled 
 to return without accomplishing the object of their mission ; 
 
175 
 
 and the English Court then undertook to forfeit the charters of 
 the colonies, with the view of rendering them entirely depend 
 ent upon the crown. They refused to appear to the summons 
 of the British courts, and although the charters were declared 
 forfeited, the sullen acquiescence of the colonists plainly indi 
 cated the brooding of a storm. This was not long in breaking 
 out. Upon the forfeiture of the charters, Sir Edmund Andross 
 was appointed Governor General of the New-England Colonies, 
 and immediately upon his arrival he entered heartily upon the 
 new policy of the court. A restraint was placed upon the 
 press ; town meetings were prohibited, except once a year ; 
 taxes were imposed upon all property and all importations. He 
 threatened to shut up the congregational meeting houses : and 
 finally, disregarding the long occupancy, and the Indian deeds 
 produced by the settlers, which he declared " to be no better 
 than the scratch of a bears paw," he undertook to act upon the 
 feudal principle, that the lands of the colonists were held of the 
 crown, and to exact a fine to be paid to the governor for a con 
 firmation of their title. This tyranny, it may be easily supposed, 
 was not patiently borne. The colonists refused to take out 
 new patents, or to levy taxes ; and the magistrates of Ipswich 
 resolved, that they would not rate the inhabitants for taxes 
 until they had an assembly. Neither was their resistance con 
 fined to mere resolves. In the spring of 1689, a report reached 
 this country that the Prince of Orange had landed in England. 
 The colonists did not wait to see what reception he met with, 
 but on the 18th of April, a period particularly unfortunate to 
 the supremacy of the mother kingdom, the country people 
 crowded into Boston, and Andross was driven into the fort, and 
 finally obliged to surrender with his satellites to the mercy of 
 those whom he had excited to tumult by his avarice and 
 tyranny. No unworthy violence or cruelty disgraced this sud 
 den rising of the people, but, like men guided by principle and 
 not by passion, they contented themselves with depriving their 
 oppressors of power, and sending them home as prisoners. 
 
 The inhabitants of New- York followed the example set them 
 in Massachusetts, and the Lieutenant Governor, Nicholson, who 
 
176 
 
 held the province for James the Second, was driven from his 
 government, and the people, headed by Jacob Leisler, took pos 
 session of the forts and archives for William and Mary. About 
 the same time the inhabitants of South Carolina became in 
 volved in difficulties with their governors, and assumed the 
 same power of sending them home. In 1G89 they claimed the 
 powers of government, and deposed James Colleton, the go 
 vernor, and finally banished him from the province. His succes 
 sor, one Sothel, met with even a worse fate. The Colonial 
 Assembly undertook to bring him to trial for his official miscon 
 duct, and upon his conviction deprived him of his government 
 and sent him to England. Virginia, also, in the early part of 
 her existence, sent home her governor for his misconduct. 
 
 The triumph of the Presbyterian party in England affords 
 another proof of the independent spirit of the people of this 
 province. From a disinclination to the religious principles of 
 the rulers of the Commonwealth, they resisted the squadron 
 sent to enforce the authority of the mother country, and finally 
 submitted upon terms which reflect great credit upon the lofty 
 principles by which her inhabitants were actuated. They 
 stipulated for a free trade; for a General Assembly; for free 
 dom from all taxation not authorized by the Assembly, and that 
 no forts should be erected or garrisoned without the consent of 
 the colonists. 
 
 In Virginia another attempt was made by the settlers to 
 control Governor Berkeley in the exercise of his authority, in 
 the year 1676. This attempt was denominated Bacon s Rebel 
 lion, although the inhabitants had abundant cause, in the mis 
 management of their public affairs and in the operation of the 
 acts of navigation, for the revolt. The public mind was also 
 much excited by claims under certain grants of lands already 
 occupied by the colonists. 
 
 Claims of this sort upon the lands occupied by the inhabitants 
 were a fruitful source of discontent. A rebellion in North 
 Carolina was produced the year after Bacon s revolt, by a re 
 port, that the proprietors intended to augment the quit rents. 
 Maryland, also, had her civil war, and Pennsylvania, with all 
 
177 
 
 her peaceful habits, was often obliged to protest against a vio 
 lation of her privileges, and on one memorable occasion re 
 solved, in opposition to the arrangements of the British govern 
 ment upon the new modelling of the colonial governments by 
 William and Mary, that the laws of the province, which were 
 in force and practice before the arrival of the present governor, 
 are still in force. 
 
 These several acts of insubordination and continual difficul 
 ties, all show the insecure tenure of royal authority over the 
 North American Colonies. In truth they always evinced great 
 repugnance to any interference with their local affairs. It was 
 not the intention of the emigrants to be controlled by a govern 
 ment established on the other side of the Atlantic. They had 
 fled from that government, and they had provided for their own 
 legislation in America. It is worthy of remark, that the inhabi 
 tants of every colony, except Maryland, had settled the forms 
 of their own government previous to the British Revolution ; 
 and the Assembly of Maryland, immediately after its settle 
 ment, refused by a vote of thirty-seven to fourteen, to receive 
 the system of laws prepared by the proprietor for the province. 
 
 From every circumstance connected with the settlement and 
 early history of these colonies, we are obliged to conclude, that 
 the inhabitants were determined to govern themselves, and not 
 receive their laws from the legislature of another kingdom, four 
 thousand miles distant. They maintained, that the laws of Eng 
 land were bounded by the four seas, and did not reach America. 
 
 The General Court of Massachusetts made this answer to a 
 charge against the colony, of having disobeyed the navigation 
 acts. On the other hand, the mother country, as soon as the 
 colonies were permanently established, in the true spirit of com 
 mercial monopoly, resolved to confine their trade to British 
 channels, and to limit their market to England. The celebrated 
 navigation acts, adopted directly after the Restoration, had for 
 their chief object the monopoly of the colonial trade. 
 
 In this relation of the provinces to the mother country may 
 be distinctly traced the causes of the Revolution. It was im 
 possible in the nature of things, that communities with sucfo 
 
 w 
 
178 
 
 opposing interests and claims, established upon such different 
 principles, and so severed by distance and sentiment, should 
 long continue to acknowledge a common authority. The voice 
 of nature had decreed the independence of the colonies, long 
 before the Continental Congress resolved to vindicate that in 
 dependence by arms. 
 
 The claim of England was to keep the colonies in a state of 
 tutelage, to engross their commerce, to monopolize the profits 
 of their labour, and so to shackle them by legislative restrictions, 
 as to prevent their inhabitants from making the best use of their 
 natural advantages. The claim of the colonists was to be really 
 independent of Great Britain. They were indeed willing to 
 acknowledge the supremacy of the crown, but merely as a title 
 of respect. They would not consent to be restricted in the 
 enjoyment of the privileges conferred by their location, to bene 
 fit a people to whom they owed nothing but the banishment of 
 their fathers. We accordingly find these parties constantly 
 striving; England to enforce her claim to absolute sway; and 
 the provinces to emancipate themselves from the shackles im 
 posed upon their trade and upon their local regulations. 
 
 After the termination of the domestic troubles of Great Bri 
 tain, and the government felt itself firmly established at home,. 
 a more systematic project was entertained to render the colo 
 nies dependent. The New-England charters, which had been 
 illegally forfeited under the Stuarts, were not restored after the 
 English Revolution ; but new charters were given, and the go 
 vernors, except of Connecticut and Rhode Island, instead of 
 being elected by the people as formerly, were appointed by the 
 king. The New-England Provinces being thus annexed to the 
 crown, the next step was to change the proprietary into royal 
 provinces. The ministers therefore began to negotiate for the 
 surrender of the charters. They found the proprietors less 
 unwilling to surrender, on account of the refractory conduct 
 of the colonists. The proprietors of New- Jersey were 
 unable to control the inhabitants of that province, and in 
 1702, their agent made a public surrender, in behalf of the 
 proprietors, to Queen Anne, who was then on the throne. The 
 
WTIVERSITY 
 
 179 ^^^iituESS^ 
 
 provinces of Carolina were purchased in 1728, for 22,500, from 
 the proprietors. In South Carolina, the settlers had previously 
 abolished the proprietary government, on account of its being 
 subversive of the interests of the colony. In 1752, the pro 
 prietors of Georgia followed the example of the other proprie 
 tors, and surrendered their charter to the crown. By this sur 
 render all the provinces, except Pennsylvania and Maryland, 
 became subject to royal government. An agreement had been 
 also made for the purchase of Pennsylvania, but the proprietor 
 was prevented by an attack of apoplexy from executing the 
 surrender, and the propriety of the province remained in the 
 Penn family until after the Revolution. 
 
 The greatest portion of the provinces, however, were re- 
 annexed to the crown, and a systematic plan was adopted to 
 make the colonists feel their dependence, and to compel them 
 to supply their wants from the British workshops. 
 
 It is unnecessary to relate in detail all the acts of accumu 
 lated tyranny by which they were driven to arms. Their 
 liberties were not merely invaded. They were destroyed, as far 
 as legislative enactments could destroy. 
 
 The colonists were rendered liable to be dragged to England 
 for trial. Their ports were shut, and thousands thrown out of em 
 ployment. They were prohibited from fishing, with the expec 
 tation of starving them into submission. Their legislatures 
 were disfranchised ; their charters, under which they had lived 
 for generations, and which they had been taught to reverence, 
 were declared void ; and troops were quartered upon them ; as 
 if the descendants of men, who had braved all and relinquished 
 all, rather than submit to oppression, were to be dragooned 
 into slavery. 
 
 While this system for the government of the colonies was 
 preparing in England, and when the inhabitants were gazing 
 with the most earnest attention upon the proceedings of the 
 representative assembly of Great Britain relative to this attempt 
 to enslave their fellow citizens; their understandings were in 
 sulted and their feelings exasperated by the contempt with 
 which their remonstrances were rejected, and the contumely 
 
180 
 
 and reproach that was thrown upon their character. They 
 were represented as mean spirited hinds, that would scatter 
 like sheep before the disciplined troops of England. Their 
 habits, their religion, their origin, were all made the subject of 
 ridicule ; and the British Parliament, when debating the great 
 question of freedom or slavery, a question upon which the in 
 tegrity of the empire depended, was entertained with anecdotes 
 of American cowardice ; as if men, who were almost in a state 
 of rebellion, were to be brought to better feelings by imputa 
 tions upon their courage. While the high spirited and ardent 
 were thus taunted and excited to violence, the deliberate and 
 sober minded were stimulated to resistance by the conviction 
 of the deadly hostility which governed the conduct of the 
 ministry. The propriety of letting loose the savage upon the 
 defenceless families of the colonists, and of arming the negroes, 
 and visiting upon the southern provinces the horrors of a ser 
 vile war, was seriously advocated by the leaders of the majority, 
 and every American felt, that the only refuge of the colonies 
 was in arms. 
 
 Their ancestors had fled from persecution, and now it had 
 overtaken them here. They knew not the right of England thus 
 to afflict them. Their lands were their own, purchased from 
 the occupants, and changed by their industry from a howling 
 wilderness into smiling gardens, orchards and fields. They had 
 been defended against the savages and the French by their own 
 valour. A father, a brother or a son, had vindicated their title 
 to the country at the expense of his life, and it was dear to them, 
 because it enclosed the remains of their gallant relatives. They 
 owed nothing to England ; and when they viewed the despotic 
 system she was preparing for them, their own and their fathers 
 wrongs rose to their recollection, and warmed them to resistance. 
 They felt them as one man ; and when Patrick Henry lifted up 
 his spirit-stirring voice in the Virginia Congress, and declared, 
 that "after all we must fight," he merely gave utterance to the 
 thought that burned in every American heart. It was the 
 general sentiment of the country, and it only required a fitting 
 pccasion to manifest itself. 
 
181 
 
 It must be remembered, that England had assumed the power 
 of appointing the colonial governors, so that at this period, all 
 the governors were in the interest of the crown ; and they had 
 the power of proroguing or dissolving the colonial assemblies, 
 Jn order to prevent the expression of public feeling, this power 
 was exercised, and the colonists were compelled, for the purpose 
 of organizing opposition to the ministerial measures, to form 
 new political institutions, whose resolutions were carried into 
 effect by public sentiment. The leading whigs of the day were 
 chosen to represent the town or district in a provincial conven 
 tion or congress, where the measures of local opposition were 
 concerted, and where delegates were chosen to represent the 
 colony in a Continental Congress, to whose wisdom was confided 
 the management of the general cause. As their first efforts 
 were directed to induce the British government to retrace its 
 steps, these congresses were at first in a great measure infor 
 mal and their measures consisted chiefly of resolves. Among 
 those resolves, however, was one to put the colonies in a state 
 of defence ; and this was caried into effect by the voluntary 
 efforts of active patriots. At length the negotiation was brought 
 to an end. The first blow was struck at Lexington, and the 
 people in the neighbouring districts rose in mass to attack the 
 regular troops, and then crowded round Boston to compel them 
 to evacuate the town. 
 
 So great was the public enthusiasm, that large companies of 
 volunteers were sent home, because there was no accommo 
 dation for them in the camp. 
 
 Jn this crisis was seen the excellence of the New-England 
 mode of municipal organization, and how admirably it was 
 suited to sustain a popular movement against an oppressive 
 government. The camp at Cambridge was supplied by con 
 tributions furnished from the towns in the vicinity. The 
 soldier often was assured by a vote of the town, that his family 
 should be taken care of in his absence. Instances were not 
 unfrequent, where small freeholders parted with the last 
 measure of corn from their granaries to supply provision for 
 the camp, and hire service for the ranks. Nobler records of 
 
182 
 
 patriotism exist nowhere. The voice of the advocates of inde 
 pendence in the Continental Congress found its full echo in the 
 little councils of the interior towns, and had that body been dis 
 persed, the hydra heads of rebellion would have elevated them 
 selves in every little town and municipality throughout the coun 
 try. Hence it was, that without courts of justice, without tax 
 gatherers, without revenue officers, or indeed without any of the 
 ordinary departments of an established government, the Con 
 tinental Congress found it so easy to carry its resolutions into 
 effect. In the eastern states, where the war broke out, the 
 municipal organization of the towns supplied the place of all 
 other government ; and the committees of safety in the middle 
 and southern states, took upon themselves the performance of 
 similar duties, until the new state governments had acquired 
 some stability. Hence, too, it was, that the colonists found it 
 practicable to establish new social institutions, when the royal 
 governors and judges, by taking refuge in the British Camp, left 
 them without any executive or judicial authorities. The people 
 were accustomed to act directly in the management of public 
 affairs ; and when the Continental Congress, as preliminary to 
 declaring the independence of the colonies, recommended to 
 them to form new civil governments, it found them competent 
 to carry the resolve into effect. It is important to observe here, 
 and more especially, as throwing light upon a question much 
 agitated among us, that in forming the political institutions of 
 this republic, there was a reciprocal action of the people upon 
 the body representing them, and of that body upon its consti 
 tuents. Again, there was a reciprocal action of the national or 
 central government in forming the state governments, and of 
 the latter in limiting and defining the powers of the former. 
 For instance, it was upon the recommendation of the Continen 
 tal Congress, that the state governments were formed. On the 
 10th of May, 1776, that body, after mature deliberation, came to 
 a determination to " recommend to the respective assemblies 
 and conventions of the United Colonies, where no government 
 sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs hath been hitherto 
 established, to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of 
 
183 
 
 the representations of the people, best conduce to the happiness 
 and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in 
 general." 
 
 This resolution was intended as a preliminary to the declara 
 tion of independence, which it was then determined to issue, as 
 soon as the proper arrangements could be made. On the llth 
 of June, accordingly, a committee was chosen to prepare the 
 declaration, and another committee to prepare a plan of con 
 federation between the colonies. Before the first resolution 
 was executed, and whilst the people of the several colonies, in 
 compliance with the recommendation, were forming their state 
 constitutions, the Continental Congress, acting in behalf of the 
 whole country, issued the celebrated declaration, by which the 
 Independence of the United States of America as one nation, 
 was asserted in the face of Earth and Heaven, and the lives and 
 fortunes and sacred honour of the members of that Congress 
 pledged for its maintenance. By this instrument and the sub* 
 sequent proceedings thereon, the American people declared 
 themselves to be an independent nation, then at war with Great 
 Britain : but as such, the whole were responsible to all the 
 world, for the acts of the citizens of each and every of the 
 colonies. They were free and independent, not as isolated 
 states, but as the United States of America : and as such only, 
 could they be regarded by mankind. 
 
 As between themselves, they were bound together by their 
 acts and their declarations : although the terms and conditions 
 of their union were not properly defined. They comprehended, 
 however, all that was necessary to prosecute the war to a suc 
 cessful result. To this they had pledged themselves : and 
 however congress might have been disposed to conciliate and 
 persuade the several states, instead of resorting to coercive 
 measures, no doubt can be entertained, that a refusal to comply 
 with its requisitions upon any of the states for the public service, 
 was a violation of faith, and that a withdrawal from the con 
 federacy by one of its members, would have been a good cause 
 of war, and have justified the invasion and conquest of that state 
 by the rest of the Union. The force of circumstances had formed 
 
184 
 
 them into a nation, one and indivisible, and instituted a general 
 government, long before the state constitutions or the articles 
 of confederation were framed. As such they were regarded 
 by other civilized nations ; and in that character, anterior to 
 the adoption of any federal constitution or articles of confedera 
 tion, they had entered into a treaty of commerce and an of 
 fensive and defensive alliance with France : and had under 
 taken, in conjunction with that kingdom, important enterprizes, 
 which presupposed the existence of a national government, and 
 that that government possessed certain extensive powers over 
 the people of the United States. With Great Britain they 
 were in a state of war, striving to expel her troops from the 
 continent, and to appropriate for themselves as much of it as 
 they could gain by force. As to the other European powers, 
 they were but one people, and known either as the United 
 States of America, or as the insurgent colonies of Great 
 Britain. Among themselves they were communities formerly 
 distinct for all the purposes of local legislation : though subject 
 in some matters, to the legislation of the mother country and 
 the royal authority : but now united by common wrongs and 
 common apprehensions, in one cause, and obliged to provide 
 new political institutions to meet the exigencies of their novel 
 situation. This subject early engaged the attention of the actors 
 in the Revolution ; and the novel spectacle was presented, of a 
 people contending for freedom and independence, with a power 
 whose fleets and armies threatened their extermination, and 
 occupied with arms in their hands, in laying the foundations and 
 erecting the superstructure of their political institutions. Short 
 ly after the declaration of independence, on the 12th of July 
 the articles of confederation were reported to congress, and 
 that body, acting in behalf of the whole country, and the people 
 in the several colonies, proceeded simultaneously to institute the 
 political system under which this new republic was to exist as 
 an independent community, united for some purposes, and 
 separate and distinct for others. The state governments being 
 more simple in their nature, and not involving the adjustment 
 of so many conflicting interests, were more readily agreed upon 
 
and earlier established ; but the intention of forming a national 
 government was agitated at the same moment, though owing to 
 the contest about the public lands, the articles of confederation 
 were not ratified until after all the state governments were in 
 full operation. It therefore may be safely asserted, that the 
 American people never entertained the idea of existing in inde 
 pendent and separate sovereignties. As the United States, they 
 had declared their independence ; and as an united people alone 
 could they maintain it. They meant to be one and indivisible, 
 and as such they put in requisition the best talents of the coun 
 try, to form for them a political system, which should provide 
 for the administration of local interests by local governments, 
 and for the advancement of the general interests by a national 
 government. Instead, therefore, of regarding the general govern 
 ment as formed by concessions on the part of the state govern 
 ments, it is to be considered as equally the establishment of the 
 people ; who, for the sake of convenience, after framing its con 
 stitution in a general congress, expressed their assent to its 
 provisions through their local assemblies, and apportioned to 
 both the local and general governments, their political powers 
 by the constitutions provided to guide those to whose hands the 
 administration of the governments was confided. 
 
 All the political institutions of the country, whether national 
 or local, were called into being at the same time by the fiat of 
 the people ; and to that source of power and not to the state 
 sovereignties, must be referred all those reserved sovereign rights 
 which are not conferred upon the federal or state governments 
 by their respective constituents. The old articles of confede 
 ration, which first served as a constitution for the national go 
 vernment, being devised under the pressure of the revolution, 
 were not found adequate to the end ; and the moment thai 
 the country was relieved from the enemy, the confederacy 
 seemed about dissolving, from the want of a more vigorous cen-< 
 tral government. The people again took the subject into con 
 sideration, and devised a remedy. Notwithstanding the jealousy 
 of the state governments, and the hostility of those charged 
 with their administration, a general convention was formed at 
 
186 
 
 Annapolis of distinguished men, representing the several states, 
 and in that body the federal constitution was framed, as com 
 prehending the powers necessary and proper to be entrusted 
 to the general government. 
 
 In that constitution, as well as in those established for the 
 different states, the peculiar principles which characterize the 
 political institutions of this country are distinctly recognised 
 and steadily kept in view. The first of these, that the people 
 are the source of all political power, appears from the preamble 
 of the constitution, as also does the second, which is not less 
 important, that the object of the government is the general 
 welfare, and that not limited to the passing moment, but refer 
 ring to posterity, as well as to the present generation. The 
 solemn language of this most important part of the instrument, 
 which serves as a key to its whole meaning, is. " to promote the 
 general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
 and our posterity, we, the people of the United States, do or 
 dain and establish this constitution." 
 
 The authority of the people, and the legitimate object of all 
 government, are here both clearly and emphatically expressed. 
 The mode in which the federal constitution proposes to accom 
 plish this object, leads me to the consideration of another prin 
 ciple of our institutions, which, although not so peculiarly our 
 own, inasmuch as all popular governments have been obliged 
 to adopt it, still it has been nowhere more clearly recognised, 
 and nowhere, let me add, have greater efforts been made to 
 induce a departure from it. I allude to the principle of repre 
 sentation, connected with the doctrines of periodical accounta 
 bility to the elective body. 
 
 As it is impossible for a great nation to transact its political 
 business in the primary assemblies, it is absolutely necessary 
 for it to act through the medium of representatives from the 
 various districts, assembled at one place, in one or more bodies ; 
 and to prevent the sudden impulses to which the mass of the 
 people is peculiarly liable, from rendering the public policy 
 as unstable as the popular breath, it is provided in the constitu 
 tions of all popular governments, that the representative should 
 be chosen for a limited term. 
 
187 
 
 During that term he acts for his constituents, not as their 
 attorney or agent, but as their representative ; and when he is 
 chosen under a constitution, he acts as their representative, 
 according to that constitution. The powers conferred by that 
 instrument upon the office held by him, are to be exercised by 
 him for that limited term ; and if those powers necessarily pre 
 suppose judgment, deliberation and free agency in the repre 
 sentative, they are vested in him to be exercised only under the 
 responsibility of accountability to the elective body at the ex 
 piration of the term. This principle so essential to the proper 
 administration of all popular representative governments, is 
 nowhere more fully recognised than in the federal constitution. 
 
 "All legislative powers herein granted," it declares, "shall be 
 vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist 
 of a Senate and House of Representatives ;" and in other sec 
 tions it provides, that the members of these bodies shall be 
 chosen for two years in the house and for six years in the senate. 
 
 This congress is not an assembly of diplomatic agents, but 
 a legislative body, in which are vested all the legislative powers 
 of the federal government, in the same manner as the executive 
 power is vested in the president, elected for four years, and as 
 the judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court, whose mem 
 bers hold their seats during good behaviour. 
 
 The whole nation is represented in congress, and in that body 
 the whole legislative power is vested, to be exercised for the 
 general, and not for local interests. Respect for the opinions 
 of a man s constituents indeed is due, and the greatest attention 
 and care for their interests, and more especially as connected 
 with the general welfare ; but the only obedience due from a 
 representative is to the constitution and the laws, and to those 
 general principles upon whose observance the prosperity of the 
 nation essentially depends. 
 
 Another principle of our institutions is religious toleration ; 
 and it was a fortunate circumstance, that the difficulties of our 
 situation, and the necessity of union during the Revolution, com 
 pelled the founders of our government to take a step in advance 
 of the public mind of Christendom, and to recognise the inhe- 
 
188 
 
 rent right of every man to worship God according to the dic 
 tates of his own conscience. They early foresaw the impos 
 sibility of uniting the Puritan of New-England, the Episcopa 
 lian of Virginia, the Catholic of Maryland, the Hugenot of 
 Carolina, and the Quaker of Pennsylvania, in opposition to the 
 arbitrary designs of England, except upon the broad ground of 
 religious freedom ; and sacrificing the pride of opinion to the 
 love of country, they adopted the glorious principle of tolera 
 tion, and made it the corner-stone of the American Union. 
 
 Such are the principles of our social institutions, and notwith 
 standing many inconveniences resulting from the adoption of 
 the democratic principles in some states more rapidly and to a 
 greater degree than the state of public education would at the 
 moment have warranted, still their successful operation have 
 more than equalled the expectations of their most sanguine 
 advocates. The great increase of our population; the augmen 
 tation of individual and national wealth; the astonishing 
 advance of the country in the manufacturing and mechanical 
 arts ; the rapid extension of our navigation and commerce to 
 every quarter of the globe, and of our towns and settlements 
 in the interior, until they oven now are found upon the shores of 
 Huron and at the foot of the Rocky Mountains ; this wonderful 
 growth of a country which the eloquent and philosophic Burke, 
 at a moment when some, who are now lingering among us, 
 were preparing to vindicate her rights, described as "that little 
 speck, scarce visible in the mass of national interest," all 
 these things bear witness to the great and unexpected success 
 of our social institutions, and of their peculiar fitness to deve- 
 lope the resources and promote the prosperity of a community. 
 It is also to be remarked, that while other countries have been 
 agitated by civil commotions, this republic has remained 
 tranquil. 
 
 The governments of Europe have nearly all undergone a 
 revolution since our own was established. Kingdoms have 
 given place to republics, and these in their turn have been fol 
 lowed by empires. The fever engendered by revolutionary 
 
169 
 
 France has occasioned convulsions in the European body poli 
 tic, which have shaken her social institutions to their founda 
 tions ; and we have seen the children of a humble advocate of 
 Corsica, seating themselves upon the thrones from which the 
 ancient dynasties have been expelled, and these again driven 
 from their places by a reaction in public sentiment. 
 
 The magnificent structure of Imperial France, erected by 
 the genius of Napoleon, with all its supporting buttresses of de 
 pendent principalities and kingdoms, fell under the accumulated 
 disasters of the Russian campaign ; and the Bourbon dynasty, 
 whose restoration cost Europe twenty years of war, and en 
 tailed upon England an irredeemable debt, was ejected from 
 France in a paroxysm of rage and disgust, and the book of 
 change and revolution again opened for the instruction and im 
 provement of Europe. How is it, then, that whilst all other 
 governments have been subject to such violent and sudden 
 revolutions, our own has remained tranquil and unmoved ? The 
 explanation of this problem is to be found in the popular cha 
 racter of our institutions. To render a government stable, it 
 is necessary that its foundation should be broad and wide ; that 
 it should be so constructed as to give to the mass an interest in 
 its preservation ; that those who desire its continuance should 
 be stronger than those who desire its overthrow. Stronger, 
 not merely in numbers, which are not always decisive of the 
 greater force ; but in education, wealth, courage, and talents, 
 which are all elements of power, and in the most critical and 
 final contests often bear off the victory from the greater 
 number. 
 
 Hitherto the political institutions have been so administered 
 as to satisfy the mass of the community, and although party 
 disputes have ran high, and, in some instances, as during the 
 embargo, the war, and in the late movements in Georgia and 
 in South Carolina, they seemed to threaten the integrity of the 
 Union, some mode has been always found to avert the crisis, 
 and to prevent matters from coming to a violent extremity. 
 
 We must not, however, forget, that it has contributed no 
 little to the stability of our political institutions, that while they 
 
190 
 
 were maturing ; the country was not subject to those disturbing 
 forces and influences from without, which have retarded the 
 growth of free institutions in other countries. We had no 
 powerful neighbours to determine at a diplomatic congress, as 
 in the cases of Belgium and Greece, what form of government 
 was, in their judgment, most suitable for the infant nation. We 
 were not disturbed by the intrigues of adjoining courts ; nor 
 annoyed by the interference of the rival factions of adjacent 
 kingdoms, all striving to force their particular theories upon 
 our notice. The ocean, which interposed so effectual a barrier 
 against the military superiority of England ; also preserved our 
 institutions from the taint which too close a contact with 
 foreign nations would surely have communicated. The moral 
 influence which Europe exercises over the the social institutions 
 of all civilized countries, seemed to be purified in passing over 
 the broad Atlantic ; and our ancestors were enabled to preserve 
 the primitive popular basis in its original strength, and to carry 
 it out through every department of the government. 
 
 But while the influence of Europe upon the character of the 
 government of the United States has been scarcely felt : such 
 has not been the case with that government in its influence 
 upon the public opinion of Europe. 
 
 The popular principle which had survived in the old Roman 
 municipalities, and which, after lying torpid during the dark 
 age of barbarian and feudal violence, was called into action 
 by the monarchs of Europe as a check upon the nobility, had 
 been for ages slowly gathering strength, and was now nearly 
 ready to demand a share in the government, and a reformation 
 of ancient abuses. 
 
 The success of the newly emancipated colonies of England 
 in establishing representative governments, gave a new impulse 
 to this feeling ; and when France, with a view of obtaining a 
 reform in the finances, and of restraining the corruption of the 
 court, shortly after the American Revolution, assembled (for the 
 first time since 1614,) her legislature or states general, she found 
 herself unable to restrain the popular feeling, which hurried 
 the nation forward to a revolution. 
 
191 
 
 It forms no part of my design to follow the revolutionists in 
 their career of fury while demolishing the political institutions 
 of ancient France ; nor to relate the mode in which Napoleon 
 constructed a new social system upon their ruins. It suffices 
 to state, that when the imperial dynasty was for ever overthrown, 
 the allied powers found the feudal institutions of France had 
 been entirely destroyed, and the enthusiastic reception of Na- 
 polean upon his return from Elba, by the French nation, afforded 
 a striking proof of the danger of attempting to re-establish 
 them. The Bourbons consequently were compelled to insti 
 tute a legislature of two chambers, and the popular branch 
 elected by an elective body, consisting of about 100,000 of the 
 large proprietors and wealthy capitalists. This body, however, 
 was decidedly liberal showing that the nation itself had been 
 rendered liberal in its political character by the revolutionary 
 process it had gone through. 
 
 .Indeed, the change in the law of inheritance, by which the 
 principles of feudal succession and the right of primogeniture 
 were abolished, has alone practically revolutionized France. 
 It is impossible that aristocratic institutions should be perma 
 nently established, where the laws of succession, co-operating 
 with the laws of nature, are constantly dividing and subdividing 
 large estates. Hence we have found the popular principle, 
 which was strong enough in 1815 to coerce the Bourbons, even 
 when backed by the allied troops, to give a charter to France, 
 so powerful in 1830 as to drive that dynasty from the throne, 
 and to establish the government, not as emanating from a royal 
 grant, but from the will of the nation. 
 
 Nor is it in France alone that the principle, so peculiarly our 
 own, has made such striking progress. 
 
 In various parts of Germany, great modifications of their 
 political institutions had been made even prior to the fall of 
 A T apoleon, indicative of the great revolution that is taking place 
 in modern society. 
 
 In Prussia, for instance, military promotion was thrown open 
 to all classes in 1807, and the next year three edicts were 
 issued, by which all ecclesiastical property was appropriated to 
 
the uses of the state ; the exemption from taxes, formerly en 
 joyed by the nobility, was abolished ; all the monopolies in trade 
 were also abolished, and every citizen permitted to exercise 
 his industry in any mode he might think proper. 
 
 In 1811, a still greater step was taken in throwing off the 
 customs of feudalism. In the Rhenish Provinces of Prussia 
 personal servitude had long before been abolished by France, 
 and that year an edict was issued, emancipating all the villeins 
 or serfs in the rest of the kingdom, and giving to them a portion 
 of the lands held by them at will, upon their surrendering the 
 remainder to the lords. 
 
 The effect of the changes in the political condition of the 
 Prussians was manifested, when the nation was called upon to 
 co-operate in expelling the French army from Germany. The 
 Prussians rose almost en masse, and their enthusiasm in the 
 cause, and their activity against their invaders, showed that 
 they felt that it was for their country, and not merely for their 
 king, that they were contending. Upon the close of the war 
 a constitution was promised to them, in which provision was to 
 be made for the representation of the people ; and although that 
 promise has not been performed, and their king has since 
 making it joined the allied despots, to repress the popular 
 movements in Europe ; still it is easy to perceive that the nation 
 is prepared for freedom, and that a war of opinion would soon 
 place Prussia among the free governments of Europe. The 
 promise, which was made when the German Confederation was 
 established, viz : " In all the confederate states a representative 
 constitution shall have place," a promise which demonstrates 
 the great progress of the popular principle, and its influence in 
 modern society, will not be lost sight of. Kings may find it 
 convenient to forget, but their subjects will remember, and they 
 will recur to it again and again, until their just demands shall be 
 granted. In several of the smaller German states, the sovereigns 
 have already complied with it, and have reformed the political 
 constitutions of their kingdoms. 
 
 In Bavaria, Wirtemberg, and in the dominions of the Grand 
 Duke of Baden, legislatures, in which the people are repre- 
 
193 
 
 sented, were established shortly after the peace of Vienna, in 
 1818, and since the Revolution of Paris similar modifications 
 have been made in the constitutions of Brunswick, Hesse 
 Cassel and Hanover. 
 
 In Holland and Belgium representative chambers are insti 
 tuted, and the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal are at this very 
 moment in the stage of revolutionary transition. Among all 
 these modifications in government, however, there is none that 
 is likely to exercise a greater influence upon the destinies of 
 Europe, than the late reform in the British Parliament. 
 
 England, from her position, her wealth, her moral force, and 
 the intelligence and courage of her people, occupies a command 
 ing station among the nations of Europe. No change can 
 take place in her councils, no revolution in her government, 
 without affecting the political character of the age, and causing 
 other governments to watch its consequences with apprehen 
 sion and anxiety. This reform, as it is called, which has lately 
 taken place, is in truth a revolution. 
 
 Hitherto the House of Commons has been a body, not so 
 much representing the people, as the aristocracy of England. 
 By means of borough nomination, the peers and wealthy tory 
 families had obtained a complete control over the majority of 
 the Commons, which, for more than a century, has been little 
 else than a tribunal to register the decrees of the ministry or 
 of the leading peers, whose combinations determine who shall 
 be the ministers. 
 
 All this is now at an end. 
 
 By the late reform fifty-six boroughs, sending two members 
 each, have been disfranchised, and thirty boroughs reduced to 
 one member each. These representatives have been given to 
 the counties and large towns, such as Manchester and Birming 
 ham, which before were not represented. 
 
 By this alteration alone the character of the house will be 
 completely changed ; but the alteration, extending the right of 
 suffrage, has given to the popular principle, not only additional 
 representatives, but has also conferred upon it greater power 
 over the whole house. The House of Commons holding thtf 
 
194 
 
 purse, and, by necessary consequence, the sword of the nation, 
 will be henceforth in practice, as well as in theory, the repre 
 sentative of the people of England. 
 
 The popular principles must henceforth predominate in that 
 government. Withoutthat constitutional addition to its strength, 
 which has been given to it by the Reform Bill in the House of 
 Commons, it has in fact since the death of Mr. Canning, con 
 trolled and overawed the government itself. 
 
 To it the Duke of Wellington conceded Catholic emancipa 
 tion, in spite of his aristocratic pride and his tory prejudices. 
 The king, when he dissolved Parliament, in order to obtain the 
 sentiments of his people upon the question of reform, bowed 
 before its power ; and the whole tory party, when they shrunk 
 from the responsibility of forming a ministry in opposition to 
 the public will, and suffered the Grey administration to resume 
 the reigns of government, virtually admitted its complete 
 supremacy. 
 
 With the new power this principle has obtained, its future 
 control must be unquestioned, and hereafter the other powers 
 of the government will subsist entirely at its mercy. 
 
 Pausing here, and looking back to the condition of the world 
 when this country was first settled, and how great has been the 
 progress of civil liberty. 
 
 At that moment all Europe was monarchical, and the rights 
 of the subject were entirely dependent upon the will of his 
 sovereign. Holland alone assumed to have shaken off the re 
 straints of despotism, and this only as it regarded national inde 
 pendence, without any material advance in the principles of 
 civil freedom as referring to the individual citizen. 
 
 Passing from that period to the era of the declaration of 
 independence, and how small was the progress. England, 
 indeed, had passed through a revolution, and the liberty of the 
 subject was secured, but the whole power of the government 
 was vested in the aristocracy. The rest of Europe remained 
 torpid as before. But little more than half a century has elapsed 
 since that event, and what a revolution ! Stimulated by the 
 success of this prosperous country, men every where have 
 
195 
 
 awakened as from a dream, and have resolved to be free. Eng 
 land has reformed her government, and made it truly an embo 
 dying of the national sentiment. 
 
 France reposes tranquilly under the protection of a govern 
 ment emphatically popular ; and Germany, no longer the land 
 of misty philosophy and extravagant sentimentality ; but prac 
 tical and thoughtful, is moving on slowly and surely to the re 
 construction of the empire, not under an absolute head ; but a 
 Germany of constitutional rights, and capable of acting its part 
 efficiently in the great work of European civilization. 
 
 To the institutions and example of this country much of this 
 improvement is owing. This republic has given assurance to 
 the world, that an intelligent community is capable of self-go 
 vernment. Its stability has demonstrated, that no institutions 
 are so secure as those which are intimately connected with the 
 interests of the whole community. The prosperity of the 
 country has convinced Europe, that a nation can flourish even 
 when deprived of the protecting care of a monarch. 
 
 In the great contest between the ancient and the modern, 
 between the European and the American systems of govern 
 ment, the latter has finally become the ascendant. Proscription 
 and ancient usage are losing their hold upon the public mind, 
 and principle is taking their place. 
 
 Men do not so much inquire whether antiquity is in their 
 favour, as whether reason and justice sanction their course. 
 The great truths, which our history has done so much to exem 
 plify, are daily acquiring fresh strength and new converts. 
 
 The Holy Alliance has in vain interposed to prevent their 
 progress and to restore the abuses of antiquity. 
 
 The three days of July at Paris, proved sufficient to over 
 throw the institutions which they had so long laboured to recon 
 struct ; and at this moment circumstances clearly indicate, that 
 the two great parties into which Europe is divided, are arraying 
 their forces for a decisive, perhaps a final conflict. 
 
 How long this conflict is to last, and with what vicissitudes 
 it is to be marked, it is not given to us to know ; but he has 
 read the history of the past with little profit, who does not fore 
 see that the progress of freedom cannot be checked, and that 
 the genius of constitutional government must ultimately prevail 
 over the genius of arbitrary power. 
 
REPORT ON ROADS, 
 
 At the Internal Improvement Convention of the State of New- 
 York, held at the Capitol in the City of Albany, on Monday, 
 the eleventh of January, 1836. 
 
 The committee appointed at the convention lately held at 
 Utica, on the subject of common roads, beg leave to report, 
 that, pursuant to the resolution of the convention, a circular 
 was addressed to the clerks of the several towns in the state, 
 requesting information as to the length of the public and turn 
 pike roads, and the number of bridges in their respective towns, 
 together with the annual cost of keeping them in repair. 
 Answers have been received from 266 towns, and at the time 
 of making the report answers are daily coming in, so that hopes 
 are entertained of making a complete statement of the annual 
 cost of the roads of the state, from actual returns. The results 
 of the answers already received show, that in 266 towns, having 
 523,488 inhabitants, the length of public roads is 19,924 miles. 
 
 The number of days work annually assessed for 
 their repair is 416,271. 
 
 The amount of money annually expended in ad 
 dition, for the same purpose, . . . $23,931 
 
 The length of turnpike roads is 579 miles. 
 
 The annual expense of repairing the same, . 9,816 
 
 The number of bridges, 1,221. 
 
 The annual expense of repairing the same, . 32,962 
 
 The whole number of towns in the state is 791, and the 
 towns making returns are about one third of the whole ; but 
 the population returning is scarcely two sevenths of the whole 
 
198 
 
 population, and the returns, therefore, may be fairly estimated 
 at that ratio. According to that rule, we have the following 
 results : 
 
 Length of all the public roads in the state, 69,734 
 
 miles. 
 
 The number of days work assessed for their re 
 pair is 1,450,948. 
 The additional money expended for the same 
 
 purpose, $84,258 
 
 The number of public bridges, 4,274. 
 
 The annual cost of keeping them in repair, . 115,363 
 
 Estimating the value of each day s work at 75 cents, and the 
 assessed labour will amount to the sum of $1,092,711, to which 
 the sum of $84,258 must be added, and we have the the enor 
 mous sum of $1,176,969 annually expended in the State of 
 New- York, for repairing common roads, besides $115,363, an 
 nually expended for the repair of public bridges, besides double 
 that sum in constructing new ones. This, too, it must be recol 
 lected, is independent of the sums expended for turnpikes and 
 toll bridges. 
 
 If this vast sum, expended in each year, had produced results 
 proportionate to its amount ; if it had effected any visible or 
 permanent improvement in the condition of the common roads, 
 the public might be reconciled to the burden thus annually 
 imposed. 
 
 It is manifest, however, that no such improvement is to be 
 found. On the contrary, the public roads in this state have not 
 visibly improved for years. Their condition in those seasons of 
 the year when good roads are required, is intolerably bad. 
 No epithet, however strong, can properly characterize their 
 wretched state. When the snow has covered them in the winter, 
 and when the summer s sun has dried and improved them, they 
 are passable ; but when these natural agents cease to exert their 
 beneficial influence, and their improvement is left to man ; 
 judging only from the results, we should conclude that his sole 
 object was to confine the traveller by walls and fences to an 
 
199 
 
 artificial ditch, and thus prevent him from availing himself of 
 the natural surface of the fields on either side of the road to 
 accelerate his journey. 
 
 Such are the results of the present system, expensive and 
 burdensome as it is to the people of the state. Your committee 
 are naturally led to inquire into the causes of its total failure. 
 
 Among these, we are induced to assign the foremost place to 
 the incapacity and inefficiency of the agents appointed to carry 
 the road laws into effect. 
 
 The path-masters do not seem to have the least knowledge 
 as to the true principles upon which roads should be constructed. 
 Instead of properly locating, grading, ditching and constructing 
 a road of hard materials, they content themselves with laying 
 out a road, not according to the face of the country, but so as 
 to suit the views of the owners of land upon the route ; and 
 the grading, ditching and providing the materials is one opera 
 tion consisting of dragging earth, and generally vegetable 
 mould, from the sides to the centre of the space appropriated 
 for the road, to be levelled, graded, and packed by the wheels 
 of the wagons passing that way. 
 
 Roads of this description, made by heaping up mud from the 
 sides, must necessarily be muddy in rainy weather. There is no 
 charm in the action of the carriage wheels, to prevent the earth 
 taken from the ditches from becoming mud on the road as well 
 as on its sides. It consequently is soon carried from the road 
 to fill up the side ditches, and the whole becomes in the fall of 
 the year a quagmire, where there is no choice between the road 
 and the ditches. The least reflection as to the nature of roads 
 will show, that no other result could be expected. 
 
 A road is an artificial contrivance or machine for facilitating 
 the transportation of heavy loads, and its efficiency depends 
 upon the perfection of its construction. For instance, upon the 
 common roads in their present condition, thirty bushels of grain- 
 are considered a load for a pair of horses ; while upon a Mac 
 adamised road, the same team can transport with the same 
 force seventy-five bushels. 
 
 The obstacles to be overcome are friction and gravitation^ 
 
200 
 
 which are increased, the first by the softness of the road, and 
 the second by its deviation from a level line. 
 
 The proper remedies for these difficulties are to lay out the road 
 as far as practicable through a level country, and to construct 
 it of hard materials, so cemented together that they present a 
 smooth and level surface for the wheels to move upon. The 
 former remedy can be applied by any surveyor, who will take 
 the pains to examine the face of the country through which the 
 road is to pass, with the view of selecting a practicable route. 
 The other remedy is more difficult of attainment. Where 
 stones can be procured, it is necessary that they should be bro 
 ken to a size that they can unite with the body of the road, and 
 thus form one mass. Large stones only serve to break up the 
 road, and to render it rough and impassable. 
 
 After a full trial upon the roads of England, MacAdam came 
 to the conclusion that no stone should be used in covering a road 
 that could not be passed through a ring two and a half inches 
 in diameter. Stones of greater size do not cement with the 
 others, and remain to break up the surface of the road. 
 
 Another difficulty to be overcome grows out of the action of 
 the elements upon the road. Moisture and frost are the great 
 destroyers of roads, by alternately softening and breaking the 
 surface. To prevent this, the road, while its surface should be 
 hardened so as to prevent the moisture from penetrating, 
 should be so formed that the water will readily run off to the 
 sides, where there should be ditches connected with the natural 
 water courses of the country. The road will thus be kept dry, 
 and the frost will have comparatively little effect upon its sur 
 face. The best shape of a road of thirty feet breadth, is a 
 segment of a flat ellipsis, with the side channels about nine 
 inches below the surface in the middle. This shape facilitates 
 the passage of the water to the sides, and when the surface is 
 properly constructed, will keep it dry and hard. The ditches 
 should be sufficiently deep to be below the bottom of the metal 
 or materials used in making the road, to serve the purpose of 
 draining, and in April and October they should be cleared out 
 so as to afford an easy passage for the water from the road. 
 
201 
 
 The draining under the present system requires a complete 
 reform, as it is of the greatest importance, and causes no great 
 expenditure. With a surface constructed of broken stones 
 cemented into one mass, and with good drains, roads are ena 
 bled to resist the action of the elements ; and the large expen 
 diture made in their construction is amply repaid by their 
 greater efficiency and durability. 
 
 In some parts of the state, however, as where clay predomi 
 nates, there is a difficulty in procuring stories of the kind used 
 in constructing roads. This does not often happen ; and when 
 it does, there is an abundance of material to supply the defi 
 ciency. Bricks may be used, as in Holland, to form good roads, 
 and when of suitable form, and united with mortar, they will 
 make a covering for a road equally capable with broken stones 
 of resisting the action of the elements. These bricks should 
 be much larger than the ordinary building bricks, burnt hard, 
 and placed in mortar upon a surface properly shaped and 
 graded, so as to form a covering for the ground impervious to 
 water. 
 
 It has also been suggested, that in those parts of the state 
 where lumber is cheap, that good roads might be economically 
 made, by using wood to cover their surface. This may be done 
 either in the mode adopted in Russia, by placing square blocks 
 upright upon the ground, and so closely packed together as to 
 present a smooth and compact surface ; or the track may be 
 covered with planks raised a few inches from the ground, 
 united together like a continuous bridge the planks being 
 placed across the road where undulating, and lengthwise where 
 level. 
 
 Either of these modes would form hard and level roads ; and 
 although the committee are not prepared to express an opinion 
 as to their relative cost and duration, they are fully satisfied 
 that either mode would be economical, compared with the 
 wasteful and useless expenditure of money and labour, made 
 under the existing system. From the best information to which 
 the committee have had access, they estimate the cost of a road 
 of thirty feet track, properly Macadamised, to be $5,000 per 
 
202 
 
 mile ; one of burnt clay, $4,000 ; one of wooden blocks, 
 84,000 ; one of planks, $3,500. These, however, are mere 
 estimates, and may vary much from the truth. 
 
 It would probably be the wisest policy to adopt the Mac 
 adamised system where practicable, and to make portions of 
 roads upon each of the other modes, in order to subject them 
 all to the test of experience. 
 
 On one point, however, there is no doubt in the committee, 
 that the present system should be entirely abandoned, and a 
 mode adopted, which shall sooner or later give a hard and uni 
 form surface to the public roads. This is necessary, not only 
 to facilitate the transportation of the produce of the state to 
 market, but to redeem the community from the reproach of 
 annually expending millions without effecting or even approxi 
 mating the object proposed by the framers of the law, relating 
 to common roads. 
 
 The mode of effecting that reform is a subject admitting of 
 different opinions. To undertake at once to Macadamise all 
 the roads in the state would be an effort, in the opinion of many, 
 beyond the ability of the community. The cross roads in coun 
 ties are not enough travelled to warrant such an expenditure at 
 this time; and, in general, they are in better order than the 
 more frequented roads. While the system of repairing roads, 
 therefore, requires a total change in the agents employed to 
 superintend its execution, it would probably be the best policy 
 to apply the reform, in the mode of constructing roads in the 
 first instance, to the post routes, and to devote the greatest por 
 tion of the money raised to render them perfect, before under 
 taking those of minor importance. When those are once well 
 constructed, the annual expense of keeping them in order will 
 be small ; and the reform of the other roads upon the same 
 principles can then be undertaken, until the public roads 
 throughout the state shall be put in perfect order. 
 
 The changes which your committee think could be advan 
 tageously made in the present system, with the view of pro 
 ducing such a result, are an alteration of the present law, so as 
 to establish five road commissioners in each county, who shall 
 
203 
 
 be empowered to order the construction and repair of all the 
 stage roads, and to employ a surveyor, under whose superin 
 tendence these roads shall be constructed and repaired. Instead 
 of assessing the farmer so many days labour, the assessment 
 should be made payable in money, or in broken stone of the 
 proper size and kind, to be delivered at specified places such 
 a quantity of stone to be an equivalent to a day s labour. The 
 roads, then, could be repaired under the immediate superintend 
 ence of the surveyor, who should be held responsible to the 
 commissioners for their condition. 
 
 What is done in this way, would then be thoroughly done ; 
 and. in a few years, the marked improvement of the roads 
 would demonstrate the superior economy of those thus con 
 structed. 
 
 Indeed, so strongly is the committee impressed with the ad 
 vantages of at once commencing this reform, upon an extensive 
 scale, that they would recommend the anticipation, by way of 
 loan on the credit of the state, of one half of twenty years 
 assessments ; the amount raised to be rateably divided, and at 
 once applied, under proper superintendence, to the construction 
 of the principal stage roads in the several counties of the state. 
 
 Inasmuch as the amount now annually raised for the repair 
 of roads equals $1,176,969 ; the sum to be thus raised by loan 
 would be $11,769,690, which could be immediately applied to 
 the construction of those roads, leaving the sum of $588,484, 
 to be annually raised by assessment, and applied to the repair 
 of roads ; and a like sum to be appropriated to the repayment 
 of the loan. To this might be added the tolls to be collected 
 on particular roads, in case the legislature should deem it ex 
 pedient to make those who use the roads contribute, as in Eng 
 land, to their maintenance and repair. To this mode of main 
 taining roads may be fairly attributed the excellence of those in 
 England, where the roads of particular districts are placed 
 under the control of trustees, who have authority to manage 
 the roads as a productive estate, and who are thus enabled to 
 improve the roads at the expense of those who use them bor 
 rowing money for constructing and repairing them, and repay 
 ing its principal and interest from the proceeds of the tolls. 
 
204 
 
 If, after determining upon the construction of the principal 
 roads upon proper principles, similar powers should be given to 
 the county commissioners for roads, a great reform would be 
 effected, and the means of transporting produce to market 
 much facilitated, without increasing the annual assessments. 
 The importance of this improvement in common roads, would 
 well justify such a step on the part of the state. With good 
 roads, every farmer in the state would be enabled, at a compa 
 ratively small expense, to carry produce, which is now useless, 
 to market. The difference in the expense of transportation to 
 the first purchaser, so important an item in the ultimate cost of 
 produce, would be 50 per cent., making a diminution of one half 
 of the present cost. Taking the average amount of produce 
 raised on a farm of 100 acres, beyond what is required for the 
 use of the farmer, to be equivalent to 400 bushels of grain 
 an amount believed to be below the real quantity ; and with 
 the present roads, fourteen journeys to the market town, with 
 a two horse wagon, will be required to transport it to market 
 a labour which, if the average distance of each farm be esti 
 mated at ten miles, would employ a wagon, horses and driver, 
 fourteen days. With Macadamised roads, the same labour 
 could be performed in six days, with more ease to the horses 
 and less injury to the wagon, making a saving, to every farmer 
 in the state, of eight days in the transportation of the produce 
 of a small farm, and a saving proportionably greater upon 
 larger farms. 
 
 This illustration of the superior economy of good roads, 
 might be applied to other branches of industry, and their 
 results would show an enormous expenditure of time and 
 money thus indirectly made by the people of the state, in trans 
 portation on bad roads, to the amount, probably, of $10,000,000 
 annually, a sum sufficient to put all the roads of the state in 
 good order. This saving in time and money is not the only 
 benefit that would accrue to the state from the adoption of the 
 policy proposed. By the expenditure of the principal sum 
 raised by loan, in constructing and repairing roads in the seve 
 ral counties, money would be circulated, labour employed, and 
 
205 
 
 the energies and enterprise of the whole community would be 
 stimulated by the actual execution of a policy calculated to 
 diffuse the benefits of public improvements throughout the 
 state not advancing one part at the expense of the whole, 
 but giving to each county its just share, and conferring upon 
 all equal, and at the same time, substantial benefits. Among 
 these may be mentioned, a more rapid increase of the popula 
 tion of the state. 
 
 With good roads, the second and third class of lands may 
 be made equally productive with the most fertile, where the 
 roads are bad the difference in the expense of transportation, 
 being more than an equivalent to the difference in the quan 
 tities produced. 
 
 Emigration from the state will be thus checked, and the 
 better and more substantial class of emigrants from other states 
 will be induced to settle here. A similar policy is recom 
 mended in relation to the construction of bridges. All the 
 bridges over small streams, and many of those over the large 
 rivers, should be made of stone, or brick, where stone cannot 
 be procured. Such structures would be permanent, requiring 
 little or no repair, and though more expensive in the construc 
 tion, are more economical than wood, when the expense of 
 construction and repair is spread over twenty years. 
 
 A similar mode might be adopted in constructing the bridges, 
 i. e., dividing the annual assessments into two parts, the first to 
 be appropriated for twenty years to the extinguishment of a 
 loan, equal to one half of twenty years assessment, the loan 
 to be applied, under the direction of the state, in constructing 
 permanent bridges in the several counties, and the residue to 
 be used for keeping those in repair whose permanent construc 
 tion is to be postponed. 
 
 Your committee are aware, that the policy recommended is 
 liable to the objections, that it will involve great expenditure, 
 and that it is novel. Objections always ready with the timid, 
 the unenterprising, and those who deem the existing condition 
 of things as not susceptible of improvement. 
 
206 
 
 The policy recommended, however, is not meant merely for 
 the present generation. Like the public buildings and the 
 canals of the state, and the aqueducts of cities, roads are in 
 tended to be permanent. They belong to the state, an exist 
 ence that is to last through ages ; and her public works should 
 all be constructed with reference to an equally enduring exist 
 ence. Economy in a state is not consulted in limiting the ex 
 penditure to merely what serves the present occasion; but in 
 looking forward beyond the wants of the present generation, 
 and having carefully consulted the ability of the community, 
 proportioning the expenditure to the importance of the object 
 to be attained. 
 
 The subject referred to the committee they deem of the 
 highest importance, whether considered in reference to the pre 
 sent or the future, and they recommend, that a memorial should 
 be addressed to the legislature, expressing the views set forth 
 in this report. 
 
 All which is respectfully submitted, in behalf of the com 
 mittee. 
 
 J. BLUNT, Chairman. 
 
 New-York, January 9, 1836. 
 
REVIEW OF IVANHOE. 
 
 1821. 
 
 THE unknown author, who has so long delighted the literary 
 world by his lively descriptions of Scottish scenery and Scot 
 tish manners, has now turned his attention to the more southern 
 part of that interesting island. From the formal manner in 
 which he took leave of his readers in the last series of Jedediah 
 Clieshbotham s tales, we felt apprehensive that he had bidden a 
 final adieu ; but, upon examination, we find that he had only 
 finished his observations upon the Scottish character, aware, 
 as he undoubtedly was, that his future essays to describe the 
 manners of that nation could be but little more than copies of 
 his former productions. 
 
 He has now began (as we hope) a series of novels, or ro 
 mances, descriptive of the customs of that nation, whose early 
 history and character interest us more deeply than that of any 
 other nation s. England ! the birth place of our ancestors ; 
 the abode of a people whose language and habits are the same 
 as our own ; whose fathers, until the year 1660, felt and acted 
 in common with ours. They suffered and triumphed together. 
 Their warriors, their statesmen, and their poets, acquired fame 
 for their American as well as for their English posterity. Chau 
 cer, Shakspeare, Spencer, Hooker, Bacon, Milton, Newton, 
 and Locke, the greatest men who have appeared in England, 
 confer honour, not upon the English alone ; Americans own 
 the same fathers, and have an equal title to that inherited glory. 
 Though injuries and insults have caused a separation of the 
 two countries, and have entirely destroyed all those tender ties 
 
208 
 
 and recollections which might have bound America to England ; 
 though the present race of Britons are the men whom their 
 injudicious policy has taught us to regard as enemies with little 
 reluctance ; still our descent from a common ancestry, whose 
 ashes are deposited with them, makes us feel a deep and undis 
 guised interest in their country, and in the character of its 
 early inhabitants. We regard it as the cradle of our literature ; 
 the birth place and the resting place of those authors, whose 
 works must delight while their language is spoken. Notwith 
 standing our growing strength renders us careless, and even 
 contemptuous, of the prowess and power of England, and that 
 we view her as a nation destined to be sorely humbled by our 
 arms ; we must always feel a lingering affection for our father s 
 home, and reverence England as the Romans did Athens. Her 
 literature will be more effectual, than her arms in averting our 
 hatred and scorn. 
 
 Her historians and chroniclers are the recorders of the rude 
 customs of our progenitors. Any investigation into olden times 
 must, therefore, be interesting to us ; and it afforded us much 
 pleasure to find that the mighty unknown had dated his story 
 before, rather than after the Restoration. We also think that the 
 reign of Richard Coeur de Lion is a more appropriate time for 
 a romance than any other monarch s. The whole human 
 family had been disturbed and broken up by the operation of 
 principles which were anomalous in the history of man, and 
 excited him to actions that now appear to be unnatural, and 
 even superhuman. The crusades, for instance, would be now 
 viewed as incredible, if the testimony were not of the most 
 positive kind. If any person should now propose a war to be 
 carried on by individuals, for the possession of the holy sepul 
 chre, we should regard him as either foolish or crazy. But 
 then a bigotted zeal against the infidels had maddened all 
 classes throughout Europe : army after army volunteered their 
 services in conquering Palestine, and its soil was fertilized with 
 the bodies of more than 3,000,000 Christians, and of an equal 
 number of Turks. At the time of this tale, though the crusa 
 ding spirit had not sensibly diminished, other motives began to 
 
20U 
 
 take the place of religious enthusiasm. The love of fame ani 
 mated some, and the desire of wealth prompted others, to 
 assume the cross. The permanent passions of ambition and 
 avarice were gradually reassuming that sway over the mind, 
 which for a time had been relinquished to bigotry and enthusi 
 asm ; and the higher classes began to practice, as well as pro 
 fess, the true virtues of chivalry. The courage of the soldiery 
 of that period assumed a milder aspect, and courtesy was con 
 sidered one of the qualifications of a knight. Such a picture 
 as this book presents of the generous manners of these men is 
 refreshing to a person disgusted with modern manners, and 
 tired of the bargaining of merchants, and chicanery of lawyers : 
 he breathes a new atmosphere. The stately knights of ancient 
 times are there portrayed in living colours ; the reader is in their 
 company, and actually conversing with them. He forgets his 
 shop and his contracts, and, in imagination at least, grasps a 
 lance, and spurs his horse upon an airy adversary. 
 
 But the interest this tale excites is not entirely owing to the 
 general manners of the mass of society ; much is due to the 
 characters of the two parties in the novel, and particularly to 
 the characters of their leaders. We say parties, because, as 
 far as we are conversant with works of fiction, it appears that 
 they are nothing but relations of some contests between two 
 sets of people, whose efforts to obtain what may be called a 
 triumph make up the incidents. The hero or heroine of the 
 tale acts in concert with a set of persons, who endeavour to 
 afford protection against the machinations of some open or 
 concealed enemies, who form an opposition party, and some 
 times several parties, though all against the principal personage. 
 This is the case with all those novels which now occur to us ; 
 Clarissa Harlowe, for instance, is persecuted by Lovelace ; 
 Amanda by Belgrave ; Tom Jones by Blifil ; Wallace by King 
 Edward ; Peregrine Pickle, Roderick Random, Thaddeus, 
 have all their enemies, and this author in particular has formed 
 all his novels upon some party conflict. In this romance he 
 has conformed to his usual rule, and with the happiest effect. 
 His selection is remarkably judicious. Before Richard the First 
 
 A a 
 
ascended the throne of England, the Saxons were dissatisfied^ 
 with the monarchs of the Norman, line, and being more nume 
 rous than their conquerors, they engaged in frequent rebellions, 
 which afforded some pretext for the numerous confiscations 
 and cruelties that avarice or inhumanity prompted them to in 
 flict. We do not find any Saxon patriot who endeavours to 
 release his countrymen from their cruel bondage ; no public- 
 spirited individual appears among them of sufficient talents or 
 influence to lead them. Even Becket, who had ambition and 
 genius, was totally engrossed in ecclesiastical disputes, and in 
 endeavouring to establish a tyranny equally degrading with 
 the Norman yoke. Among the Saxons, therefore, we find 
 nothing to love, admire, or interest. We feel pity for their 
 sufferings, but our pity is mingled with contempt for a people 
 who had not spirit or energy to shake off their chains. 
 
 The unfeeling, successful Normans were not more interest 
 ing until the latter part of the life of Henry II. Their inse 
 curity before that time gave them full employment, and they 
 were obliged to continually exert their courage in defending 
 their conquests. But such petty rebellions of peasants against 
 tyrannical masters afford no food for the romantic reader. He 
 cannot sympathize in the sufferings of undistinguished indivi 
 duals, and for their tyrants he feels unmingled detestation. But 
 Henry, the father of Richard, a monarch remarkable for his 
 prudence and enterprise, had so firmly seized the reins of 
 government, that the Saxons began to despair of ever regain 
 ing their freedom, and relinquished all regularly organized 
 opposition to the Normans. Some few, indeed, were driven 
 by the tyrannical forest laws into open defiance of public au 
 thority, but the great body of natives sullenly submitted to a 
 power which could not be resisted with any hope of success; 
 and the Norman knights, finding no warlike employment 
 at home, were compelled to seek abroad gratification of their 
 thirst for action, in voluntary feats of chivalry and knight- 
 errantry. 
 
 All readers of English history know, that Coeurde Lion was 
 Uue first Norman monarch who loved or was beloved bv his 
 
211 
 
 English subjects. The wound inflicted by the battle of Hastings 
 was not then wholly closed, but the two races had intermarried, 
 and the line of division was gradually disappearing. The caus 
 of a hatred so rancorous and lasting between the Saxons and 
 the Normans, may be found in the history of the llth century. 
 Sufficient had been done by the Normans, in confiscating all 
 the real property of the natives, to exasperate and inflame 
 them ; but their mutual animosity was increased by being con 
 tinually opposed to each other. The predecessors of Richard 
 had used the Normans to conquer England, and afterwards 
 employed the Saxons to subdue the rebellious Normans. The 
 descendants of the latter, who came over with William, had 
 not yet lost their partialities for their native land, where many 
 of them still owned castles, and consequently sided with their 
 countrymen. These circumstances prolonged the existence of 
 an animosity, which is not generally entertained by the van 
 quished against victors residing amongst them. But the cru 
 sade, in which Richard engaged, enlisted many of his subjects, 
 Saxon and Norman, under his banners, and, as brothers in 
 arms fighting for the Holy Sepulchre, they forgot those ani 
 mosities which had made them enemies at home. His gallant 
 character did much in appeasing these hatreds : his generosity, 
 romantic courage, and, above all, his undeserved sufferings, 
 gained the love of his subjects, who, groaning under the 
 tyranny of the profligate John, hailed his return with the 
 warmest expressions of affection, and considered him more as 
 a restorer of freedom and a patriot, than as a sovereign with 
 extensive prerogatives. 
 
 Here, then, were two parties, and the first founded since the 
 conquest, who were qualified to become the parties of a tale 
 or romance. Before this reign the Saxons were too much 
 injured, and the Normans too ferocious and cruel, to grace the 
 page of fancy. Vice ultimately successful, and virtue continu 
 ally suffering, is contrary to poetical justice a quality which 
 we wish to see in fictitious tales, because, in truth, it exists in 
 real life. Both these parties are interesting. The brutal Nor- 
 
212 
 
 mans, the haughty templars, and the profligate monks, who 
 favoured the ambitious designs of John, are not without some 
 redeeming virtues; while the injured Saxons, and those Nor 
 mans who accompanied Richard to Palestine, form another 
 party, more deserving, because of their virtue and loyalty. 
 
 We are also much interested in their leaders. Richard, care 
 less of danger, even to a fault generous both to friends and 
 lues realizing in his own character all the virtues of a knight- 
 errant, if he has not deserved the reputation of a wise and pru 
 dent monarch, has gained a brilliant name as a gallant warrior ; 
 and, in spite of the formal saws of wise moralists, such glory 
 will always be envied and sought after by the high-minded and 
 ambitious. To see a monarch voluntarily relinquish the luxu 
 ries of his palace for the hardships of a camp exposing his 
 life like the lowest of his subjects, commands our respect, even 
 when his aim is to extend his empire : but when, like Richard, 
 he is prompted by chivalric or religious enthusiasm, though the 
 sage philosopher may condemn such a waste of life, his exploits 
 become the theme of the poet s song, and his character is 
 admired by every person, until intercourse with the world 
 has chilled all romantic feelings. It is owing to such kings as 
 Coeur de Lion, monarchs who descended from the throne to 
 mingle with their subjects, led them in battle, even there mani 
 fested their superiority, "the first in danger as the first in place," 
 that the kingly character became so highly respected. Here 
 ditary monarchy was established by the merit and courage of 
 the ancient kings ; and since the ridiculous doctrine of an un- 
 alienable right to their thrones has been advanced, monarchs 
 have degenerated, and are daily losing the respect of their 
 subjects. They have confined themselves to courts the people 
 have transferred their affections to more prominent men ; and, 
 judging from the late occurrences in Europe, we should say, 
 that the time has nearly arrived, when kings must resign their 
 crowns, or deserve them. " To have done, is to hang quite out 
 of fashion, like a rusty mail in monumental mockery." If kings 
 will be slothful or stupid, their subjects forget their titles in com 
 menting upon their characters, and will soon learn to consider 
 
213 
 
 them as mere idle and stupid men. They will be restricted in 
 power, or deposed, as many have been before them for the same 
 cause. Interested persons, whom they have gathered around 
 them, may uphold their cause for a time ; but the will of the 
 people is irresistible, and must at last be obeyed. It is worse 
 than useless to oppose it. Opposition only influences the public 
 mind, by retarding revolutions, until the accumulated force 
 becomes unmanageable, and the revolutionists are rendered 
 cruel and vindictive, by the resistance of prejudice and interest. 
 
 But to return. Of all the monarchs, who conferred lustre 
 upon their stations, Richard had the most personal gallantry. 
 He was a true knight-errant, seeking danger wherever it was 
 to be found, and nothing was too dangerous for his romantic 
 daring. It is related of him, that at Acre or Jaffa, with less 
 than four hundred followers, he sustained the assault of thirty 
 thousand Turks, and afterwards rode from one end of their line 
 to the other, without meeting an antagonist, who dared to cross 
 him in his career, or to accept his often repeated challenge. 
 Such a monarch is fit to become the hero of a romance. 
 
 At the head of the other party was John, a prince, cruel, 
 mean and cowardly, whose whole life is nothing but a tissue of 
 ingratitude to his father and mother, treachery to his allies, and 
 tyranny to his subjects. Yet this man, with all his baseness, 
 interests us, and we would willingly learn more of his character 
 for two reasons; 1st. That he signed the Magna Charta ; and, 
 2d. That the immortal Shakspeare has made him the subject 
 of one of his tragedies. Either of these circumstances had 
 rendered him too remarkable to be forgotten. And now, in the 
 words of an old English ballad, 
 
 " Let us leave talking of Little John, 
 And think of Robin Hood," 
 
 " that prince of robbers and most gentle theefe," who was a 
 cotemporary, and governed his outlaws with as much justice 
 and order, and more prudence, than many a monarch of true 
 men. This redoubtable archer is himself a sufficiently interest 
 ing person for the hero of a tale. His exploits and adventures 
 
214 
 
 would fill up a larger book than this. For near a century his 
 various conflicts and robberies gave full employment to the old 
 ballad makers, and at length he became so popular, that, on 
 May day, the English yeomen used to assemble and perform a 
 singular farce, in memory of the Hero of Sherwood and his 
 merry bowmen. 
 
 Such a life as theirs is represented to be, supplying the table 
 by deer hunting, enjoying alternately the pleasures of the chase 
 and the revels of a feast in the open air, with companions, whose 
 bold and frank manners were untrammelled with the shackles 
 of civilization, has something in it inexpressibly charming to an 
 ardent imagination. 
 
 Their insecurity only enhances their pleasure. Though men 
 be desirous of preserving their lives, yet there is something so 
 attractive in a life of peril, that to men of fearless dispositions 
 no moments are so full of enjoyment, as when they have to 
 exert all their faculties in extricating themselves from danger 
 ous situations. 
 
 Their outlawry was the consequence of opposition to their 
 oppressors, not of crimes ; and at that time thieving was a 
 reputable and honest way of obtaining a livelihood. These 
 circumstances being considered, it is not surprising that the 
 bold-hearted Robin should have preferred plundering the rich 
 oppressor, and slaying the king s deer in the forest, to culti 
 vating the soil, or tending the swine, of some tyrannical 
 Norman. 
 
 Though many hardships were necessarily attendant upon 
 such a life, still it was better than slavery. Habit had steeled 
 them against the weather. They had many a jovial feast even 
 in the winter, and spring brought them all their pleasures in full 
 perfection. 
 
 " When shaws been sheene and shraddles full fay re, 
 And leaves both large and longe, 
 Itt s merry walking in the fayre forest 
 To hear the small birds songe." 
 
 It is to be regretted that such an interesting character should 
 be so slighted ; he was entitled to a tale of his own. If this 
 author had devoted all his powers to these outlaws, and been 
 
215 
 
 more careful in writing, we believe, though it is almost profa 
 nation to whisper our belief, that he might have made the Prince 
 of Outlaws and Friar Tuck equal to the madcap Hal and Fal- 
 staff of Shakspeare. We think that there is no small resem 
 blance between these characters. Certainly Robin Hood and 
 his merry men are not deficient in jollity, humour, or in any 
 marked outline of character, to the merry prince and his jovial 
 crew ; and in courage they have the advantage over all except 
 the Prince of Wales. But it is useless to fancy what the author 
 might have done : let us be thankful for what he has done, in 
 describing the outlaw s life. As to Robin Hood, the untimely 
 death to which he adverted was assassination. He was taken 
 suddenly ill in a convent, and the friars bribed the physician 
 who was employed to bleed him, to suffer him to bleed to death. 
 
 "Thus ended the life of this good yemen ; 
 
 " God send him eternal blysse ; 
 " And all that with a hand bowe shoteth, 
 
 " That of heaven they never mysse. Amen." 
 
 The Normans, Saxons, and outlaws, were peculiar to Eng 
 land ; but there were orders and classes of society, who, though 
 spread all over Christendom, had manners of their own, and 
 entirely different from their countrymen s. Those great prin 
 ciples which had so disordered civil society, had created com 
 munities, whose members did not feel as Englishmen or French 
 men, but as belonging to a particular order. These orders were 
 formed by certain principles operating upon passions, which, 
 though always existing, were never so highly excited before or 
 since ; and the actions of their various members displayed 
 some points of the human character to great advantage in the 
 eye of the poet and the philosopher. 
 
 The Christian religion had then obtained such a commanding 
 influence over the passions, though not over the reason of men, 
 that it induced many of its votaries to thwart and oppose the- 
 dictates of nature ; considering a self-denial as the most meri 
 torious act of piety. Hence many enthusiasts took upon them 
 selves vows of perpetual celibacy and poverty. If these vows 
 had been obeyed, no great evil could have resulted from socie- 
 
216 
 
 ties which frustrated the great command of nature, " Increase 
 and multiply." The members would not have been very nu 
 merous while performance of their obligations was rigidly 
 enacted ; but unfortunately for their morals, the power of dis 
 pensing with the obligations of oaths, and of pardoning sins, 
 being vested in the priests, deprived the vows of their binding 
 force. The monks, like the jovial Tuck, " confessed the sins of 
 the green cloak to the gray friar s frock, and made all well 
 again." The vow of celibacy being thus dispensed with, many 
 inducements were offered to the common people to enter mon 
 asteries. They found there food, clothing, influence ; indolent 
 dispositions were indulged, and their sacred station protected 
 them from violence, which was, in those turbulent times, no 
 mean privilege. The monasteries consequently became nu 
 merous and full ; for the lazy, the sensual, and the cowardly, 
 all flocked thither, that they might safely gratify their appetites 
 under the cover of a friar s frock. But minds of a higher order 
 could not be so easily contented; an ascetic piety, joined with 
 a spirit of chivalry, prompted many of the nobility to enter 
 into military associations of the monastic character, for the 
 defence of the Holy Sepulchre ; and these knights displayed 
 consummate prudence and romantic valour in prosecuting their 
 holy designs, worthy of men who had sacrificed the pleasures 
 and vanities of this world upon the altar of religion. The vene 
 ration paid by their more peaceful Christian brethren to these 
 military monks, though perhaps deserved, was undoubtedly 
 flattering to their self-love and pride, passions which were not 
 a little nourished by those around them, The inhabitants of 
 Palestine had been for many centuries the humble vassals of 
 some imperious conqueror. Their spirit was broken and sub 
 dued ; their habits slavish and cowardly. Such a people must 
 necessarily have disgusted the high-spirited Frank, who could 
 not refrain from drawing conclusions favourable to his own 
 character. Their foes were not more calculated to lower these 
 flattering opinions. They were infidel dogs, whom it was 
 meritorious to extirpate ; pagans, doomed to feel the warlike 
 prowess of the Christians in this world, and to everlasting 
 
217 
 
 wrath in the next ; and it is not surprising that the Templars 
 should have been haughty and proud ; neither is it matter of 
 great wonder, that in a country whose cities were subject to 
 continual siege and pillage, whose climate was favourable to 
 the indulgence of the passions, and whose black eyed girls 
 were not greatly averse to a suing lover, that sometimes the 
 warlike monks were tempted to enrich the church with the 
 plunder of infidels, or that, in an unguarded moment, they forgot 
 their vows of celibacy. Such a breach of sacred obligation 
 might then have excited universal indignation ; but now, when 
 eight centuries have allowed prejudice and passion to subside, 
 we must candidly confess, that we are not greatly surprised that 
 these vows were repeated oftener than they were performed. 
 Brian De Bois Guilbert, one of the principal characters in this 
 romance, is the representative of the Templars, possessing all 
 their faults and virtues, strongly marked. To gratify his desires, 
 he does not scruple to sacrifice the happiness and peace of any 
 who may jostle him in his course. Like all the votaries of am 
 bition, he looks upon men as mere tools for his use. But his cool 
 ness in danger, his scorn of duplicity, and his firmness of mind, 
 which he well describes, when in the interview with the Jewess 
 in her prison, he says, " I am, Rebecca, as thou hast spoken me, 
 untaught, untamed, and proud that, amidst a school of empty 
 fools and crafty bigots, I have retained the pre-eminent forti 
 tude that places me above them. I have been a child of battle 
 from my youth upward, high in my views, steady and inflexible 
 in pursuing them. Such must I remain proud, inflexible and 
 unchanging, and of this the world shall have proof." Such 
 sentiments compel our respect. We bow with awe and vene 
 ration to the mind, that tow 7 ers above the accidents of fortune, 
 and seems the arbiter of its own fate. This haughty Templar is 
 a character very similar to Marmion ; so much resembling him, 
 that we have no doubt that the same fancy portrayed both, 
 This opinion is confirmed by several scenes and personages in 
 Ivanhoe, which bear nearly the same relation to Bois Guilbert 
 that their originals bear to Marmion. Rowena is a copy of 
 Clare ; Ivanhoe of De Wilton ; and the manner in which the 
 
 Bb 
 
216 
 
 latter are introduced are alike in both works. They come be 
 fore their rivals disguised as Palmers. If Wilton with his solemn 
 augury intimidates 
 
 " Marmion, whose steady heart and eye 
 Ne er changed in worst extremity," 
 
 Ivanhoe cowers the Templar by intimating his disgrace at Acre ; 
 if Marmion fell before his rival on Gifford Moor, Bois Guilbert 
 is defeated by Ivanhoe in the lists of Ashby. The resemblance 
 is striking, and confirms our belief that Walter Scott is the 
 author of these novels. 
 
 Another class of warriors little less interesting than the Tem 
 plars, was the Free Lances. In those days, no trades or profes 
 sions were honourable. There were no regularly educated 
 politicians. War, religion, and love, were the occupations of 
 all the high-born and ambitious, and unfortunately marriage had 
 not then become a money-making business ; consequently the 
 church or the camp was the only alternative of an impoverished 
 nobleman. If he had a peaceful disposition, and a love of 
 learning, he sought promotion in the church; but if, like De 
 Bracy, he formed ** his letters like spear heads and sword 
 blades," he was a military genius, and associating with himself 
 others, who were as rich in family arid as beggarly in pocket, 
 he offered his services to any prince who could not raise troops 
 among his own subjects. Men of this description must neces 
 sarily have been hardened by the many cruel scenes in which 
 they were obliged to participate. Like all other mercenary sol 
 diers, their manners were licentious, frank, even to rudeness, 
 and their dispositions generous and fearless. As their object 
 was plunder, they were rapacious ; and as they were poor, they 
 were uneducated and illiterate. 
 
 Of these men Maurice De Bracy is a favourable specimen. 
 Illiterate, poor and rapacious, like his comrades, he has many 
 good qualities to redeem him from reprobation such as invio 
 lable faith, great personal gallantry, and a tenderness of dispo 
 sition, which, though not so great as to entitle him to the appel 
 lation of a humane man, was remarkable in a Free Lancer. His 
 conduct towards Rowena and Ivanhoe, in Torquilstone ; his* 
 
 
219 
 
 reckless courage in the defence of that place ; his indignant 
 refusal of John s proposal to waylay Richard, all prove a soldier, 
 with much knightly pride, and some arbitrary notions of honour, 
 though living in turbulent and licentious times. 
 
 We noted one fault in the author s description of De Bracy- 
 He is made to tell John of the slaughter at Torquilstone, in the 
 scriptural language of the messenger to Job an intimacy with 
 the Bible, which we should not have expected in one, who 
 represents the Israelites as applying to the Pope for absolution 
 from the vow, which they had made in Mizpeh, that they would 
 not give a wife to any of the tribe of Benjamin. The author 
 is guilty of the same fault, when he puts the words of Jacob s 
 children in the mouth of Wamba, who, however shrewd, and 
 even learned in jests, cannot be supposed to be well versed in 
 Scripture, at a time when it was locked up in the dead lan 
 guages. 
 
 But the most interesting personage in this romance is Re 
 becca. A Jewess, who, notwithstanding the contumely heaped 
 upon her nation, preserved her character free from that mean 
 ness which the peculiar circumstances in which they were 
 placed compelled them to practice. The security of the nobi 
 lity themselves, in those turbulent times, was due to their own 
 power, more than to the restraints of the law. It could not be 
 expected then, that the humble, persecuted, and unprotected 
 Jew should escape ; especially when the bigotry of the times 
 commanded, and the interest of the rapacious nobility was pro 
 moted by, the oppression and plunder of this wealthy, but dis 
 pirited people. This reign was remarkable for the prejudice 
 which existed against the Jews. Directly after Richard s 
 coronation, though without his sanction, a terrible persecution 
 was commenced against them at York ; five hundred were 
 massacred by the common people, who plundered their houses. 
 But Rebecca, notwithstanding the insults and injuries to which 
 she, in common with her people, is daily exposed, preserves her 
 dignity of character. She appears sensible, that talents, like 
 hers, entitle her to respect, and, in spite of the disadvantages of 
 her situation, displays a strength of mind, and amiable disposi 
 tion, which command our esteem and sympathy. 
 
220 
 
 Her father, too, is well described ; but as our limits will not 
 permit us to analyse every character in the work, we will 
 barely mention one or two faults in the author before we 
 conclude. 
 
 There is a great carelessness in the composition. Many 
 violations of grammatical rules, and some few of historical 
 truth such as miscalling William Rufus the grandfather of 
 John. Rufus had no children, and was the brother of John s 
 great grandfather. We also think, though it may seem bold to 
 make such an accusation against such an author, that he has 
 condescended to borrow from Godwin s novel of St. Leon. 
 Page 277, Isaac uses the same language with the Jew, who 
 afforded St. Leon a shelter from the inquisitors. Front De 
 Boeuf has the same outlines, though he is a far inferior character 
 to Bethlem Gabor. His interview with the Jew greatly resem 
 bles the conference between Bethlem and St. Leon ; and the 
 destruction of their castles, and the escape of their prisoners, 
 have so much resemblance, as to warrant a belief, that the 
 author of Ivanhoe had the story of St. Leon fresh in his mind, 
 when he was composing this part of his romance. 
 
 These, however, are trivial faults, and we would forgive them, 
 though ten times more numerous, to be as much excited as we 
 were, while reading this book. We could hardly persuade 
 ourselves that the scenes were unreal ; that we were reading a 
 romance, instead of witnessing a tournament ; and our first 
 feelings were regret, that we did not live in those times, when, 
 as the gallant Froissart observed of Sir Reginald De Roye, a 
 man s being " young, and in love, made all his affairs prosper." 
 
 But the days of chivalry and knight-errantry have gone by. 
 Men now seriously apply themselves to business, and neglect 
 everything which has not some immediate relation to their in 
 terest. No generosity can now be shown to an enemy, without 
 incurring the charge of fool-hardiness. An unsuccessful officer 
 would be cashiered, if he should refuse to take odds. This 
 apparent selfishness compares but poorly with the frankness 
 and fearlessness of our ancestors, and our feelings are highly 
 excited by the boldness, generosity, and hardihood of men, 
 
221 
 
 whose situation was calculated to elicit the ruder virtues. 
 This author possesses great talent in describing such characters, 
 and has given interest to Scotland, and conferred much honour 
 upon the Scottish character, by his celebrated novels, whose 
 stories are laid in that country. 
 
 He is now about to give the same glory to England. And 
 have we no genius, who, possessing himself of the requisite 
 knowledge, will employ his pen in perpetuating the rude man 
 ners of our own immediate ancestors ? Is America, the younger 
 sister of the family, to be without her fairly acquired fame ? 
 
 While we give due praise to the scenery and customs of 
 other countries, let us not forget that our own are equally in 
 teresting. The religious enthusiasm, the enduring fortitude 
 and firmness of our New-England ancestors, make them not 
 inferior to the persecuted Cameronians. 
 
 To see them quitting their country, their wives, and their 
 children, and seeking religious freedom in a wilderness, not 
 withstanding the terrors of the ocean and of savage cruelty, 
 shows no less courage and reliance upon Providence, than the 
 lifting up of a standard against Charles the Second by Burley 
 and his brethren. Even the poor Indians, who once inhabited 
 this country, but who now, alas, have vanished at the approach 
 of civilization, like the mist of the valley before the morning 
 sun ; their hunting grounds have been turned into cultivated 
 fields, their little wigwams removed to give room for our popu 
 lous cities ; they have long since joined their fathers beyond 
 the great lake, and the place which once knew them knows 
 them no more. These hunted and persecuted people have 
 characters, which may vie in intent with those of the proudest 
 and most ancient European nations. Sassacus, Canonicus, 
 and Nanunthenoo, Indian chiefs, display magnanimity, fortitude, 
 and patriotism, which would cast even Roman virtue in the 
 shade. In what do Robin Hood or Rob Roy surpass Philip, 
 Sachem of the Wampanoags, who, by his valour and policy, 
 brought the colonies to the very brink of destruction ? In what 
 part of European or Asiatic history do we find men, the work 
 ings of whose minds were more powerful or productive of 
 
222 
 
 greater results, than those of our revolutionary fathers? Why 
 should the names of Hancock, Adams, Henry, and Randolph, 
 be less dear to us than Scotch and English heroes ? 
 
 Is there less originality in the American character ? By no 
 means. Captains Church and Standish, Roger Williams, Cot 
 ton Mather, William Penn, Old Putt, and Mad Antony, as the 
 old soldiers used to call Wayne, with many others whom we 
 could mention, display as strong and marked outlines, as much 
 boldness and originality of character, as any of the most inte 
 resting personages in any other countries. 
 
 Our history, too, is equally stored with interesting events. 
 The assault of the Narraganset fort ; the battles of Lexington 
 and Bunker Hill are not inferior to those of Loudon Hill and 
 Bothwell Brig. The manner of fighting is as personal and 
 singular, the feelings of the combatants as much excited, and 
 greater interests depending upon the result of the conflicts. 
 
 The persecutions of the Quakers, the condemnation of the 
 witches, and the warlike preparation which the first settlers 
 were obliged to make, even when then they went to the house 
 of prayer, afford additional materials also for such novels. 
 Neither is our scenery uninteresting. Nature has formed every 
 thing in this country upon the grandest scale. She has piled 
 up mountains and poured down cataracts with a bounteous 
 hand. She has left us nothing to complain of. Whether we 
 view the broad swelling Catskills, or the towering White Moun 
 tains, which are cloven down to their base, and afford a channel 
 for the Saco, whose precipitous banks are there several thou 
 sand feet high ; whether we fearfully listen to the thundering, 
 foaming Niagara, or watch the stream of the Catskills, which 
 reaches the bottom of an immense precipice in the form of 
 dew; whether we linger on the verdant banks of the lovely 
 Housatonick, or admire the lordly Hudson, as he rolls his swell 
 ing flood through a bold and romantic region, we find fresh 
 cause of exultation, and are ready to exclaim, with the patriotic 
 Syrian, "Are not Pharphar and Abana, rivers of Damascus, 
 better than all the rivers of Israel." 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 or 
 
 THE HOME LEAGUE, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 1842. 
 
 ON the first of July next, a new era commences in the his 
 tory of the United States. Unless some modification shall be 
 made at the next session of Congress, on that day the impost 
 system of the United States will be placed upon a basis as yet 
 untried in this, and, as we believe, in any other civilized country. 
 From that time all discriminating duties are to be abolished 
 the protection hitherto extended to the manufacture of articles 
 essential to the independence of the country, is to be laid 
 aside the legislation of other nations adverse to our national 
 interests is to be disregarded, and under a fixed and permanent 
 duty of 20 per cent., the navigation, manufactures, and agricul 
 ture of the United Slates, so far as they are affected by foreign 
 trade, are to be committed to the caprice and hostility of 
 foreign legislation ; and to be regulated, prohibited, or encour 
 aged, as the interests of other governments shall prescribe. 
 How far such a departure from the established national policy 
 of the United States is justified by a recurrence to our past 
 history, or by sound maxims of government, is well worthy of 
 consideration. 
 
 The American people are fully aware of the grasping and 
 monopolizing character of the policy adopted by the nations of 
 Europe, for the government of this continent. That knowledge 
 
224 
 
 grows out of their public history. It is identified with their 
 recollection of the councils and achievements of the revolution, 
 which was in itself an effort to emancipate this continent from 
 the shackles of the colonial and commercial system of Europe. 
 So far as related to the territory of the United States, that 
 attempt was successful. 
 
 The establishment of our independence put an end to all 
 direct control and interference on the part of England, with 
 the industry and commerce of the United States. 
 
 The indirect control of the colonial policy was as great as 
 ever. So far as related to our commerce with the territories 
 and islands adjacent to the United States, we were still in a 
 state of vassalage. It is true that we could trade with Europe, 
 and we had an equal voice in the regulation of the trade be 
 tween the United States and the colonial possessions of Eu 
 ropean powers; but their jealousy forbade all intercourse which 
 was not exclusively regulated by them for the interest of the 
 mother countries, and in this manner the United States were 
 isolated and debarred from intercourse with all neighbouring 
 colonial possessions. 
 
 The southern part of this continent was in possession of 
 Spain, and her jealousy excluded all trade with those colonies. 
 On the north, England exercised a similar control, and with 
 the same hostility to American commerce. The vast and fer 
 tile valley of the Ohio was denied all access to the ocean, 
 because the mouth of the Mississippi was owned by Spain ; 
 and the equally extensive and fertile shores of the great lakes 
 were subjected to the same inconvenience, because the St. 
 Lawrence flowed past one of those military out-posts with which 
 the commercial policy and grasping ambition of England have 
 encircled the globe. 
 
 Even when under the pressure of war any European power 
 opened her colonial ports to our commerce, it was deemed 
 an infringement of the principles of the colonial system : and 
 our vessels have been subjected to capture and condemnation 
 for participating in a trade, which was stigmatised as a violation 
 of the European law of nations. The resources and commerce 
 
225 
 
 of this hemisphere were deemed the property of Europe, and 
 all intercourse and trade among its inhabitants were to be 
 wholly prohibited, or so regulated by her parental legislation, 
 as solely to promote European interests. 
 
 Such a prohibition was an arbitrary exercise of power, inju 
 rious to the interests and rights, not only of the colonies, but of 
 the United States. It was in contravention of the natural 
 rights of the inhabitants of this hemisphere, and would justify 
 them in resuming those rights by force, whenever their interests 
 would permit recourse to the dernier resort of nations. 
 
 The sagacious statesmen of the revolution felt that the con 
 test was not yet at an end. The victory was only partially 
 achieved. The bonds of colonial vassalage had been shaken 
 off; but the broken bars and shackle-bolts still lay scattered 
 around, encumbering the ground, and obstructing our path to 
 prosperity and greatness. A system of policy was to be 
 adopted, which should secure to the country the substantial 
 fruits of independence. Among the first objects which attracted 
 the attention of the federal government, was the shipping inte 
 rest ; and a law was enacted which, by a discriminating ton 
 nage duty, compensated American vessels for the burdens 
 imposed upon them by the British navigation acts, and enabled 
 them to compete upon an equal footing for the carrying trade 
 between the two countries. 
 
 Measures were also adopted to open the Mississippi to the 
 trade of the rich territory beyond the Alleghanies, and to ena 
 ble its productions to reach the ocean by the way of New- 
 Orleans. At the same time, steps were taken to obtain a fair 
 share in the commerce between the United States and the West 
 Indies ; or at all events, to put an end to the monopoly of that 
 business, which the British government sought to secure to its 
 own shipping. This was effected, after a long and protracted 
 contest, by the passage of laws prohibiting all trade with Bri 
 tish colonies, in which American vessels were not permitted to 
 participate . 
 
 Among the chief inconveniences to which the new republic 
 was subjected, was one growing out of the impost systems 
 
 c c 
 
226 
 
 adopted by the great European powers. It found on all sides 
 an interdiction, which prevented it from selling in their markets 
 such productions as it found itself best able to raise. 
 
 With the view of encouraging their own manufactures and 
 industry, or to raise the means of maintaining the vast expen 
 diture of their governments, they had imposed duties so high 
 upon importations as to almost exclude us from their markets. 
 Against the productions of this country, so lately in the hands of 
 colonial thraldom, and still obnoxious to the European prejudice 
 that America was an inferior portion of the globe, created and 
 cultivated solely for their use, these impost systems bore with 
 peculiar force. The statesmen of the old world could not forget, 
 that, until the Continental Congress of 1776 had broken the 
 thraldom, not a hob-nail, nor a yard of cloth, could be made in 
 America, without the consent of European legislation ; and 
 England, especially, remembered that her laws prohibited any 
 manufacturing in the colonies, which could interfere with her 
 staples, or disturb a policy that doomed the colonists to the 
 cultivation of the soil, with the view of providing a market for 
 her manufactures. 
 
 It was in the face of this system this general enmity that 
 the commercial and manufacturing interests of the United 
 States were to be built up ; and the policy adopted was that of 
 reciprocity. We proclaimed to the world that we sought free 
 trade, but to those that refused it we would extend retaliation. 
 Our statesmen seemed to have been governed by the feeling 
 that dictated the stern and stirring motto of old Massachusetts: 
 
 ENSE petit placidam sub libertate quietem. 
 
 Discriminating duties w r ere imposed upon importations, having 
 a due regard to the ability of the country to manufacture for 
 itself. Under this system, the great interests of the country 
 have advanced w T ith unexampled rapidity. The navigation of 
 the Mississippi was obtained by a vigorous negotiation, which 
 more than intimated energetic action. The flag that had so 
 lately appeared among those of independent powers swarmed 
 in every sea ; and within the first half century of our national 
 
227 
 
 existence, we stand second only to Great Britain in the amount 
 of our commercial marine. Yielding to the necessity of pro 
 viding for her West India Islands supplies that could only be 
 drawn from the United States, England was obliged to permit 
 our vessels to trade with the colonies upon terms approaching 
 to equality. 
 
 The exports of the country, which in 1791 only amounted to 
 $19,000,000, had increased in 1830 to $74,000,000, and in 1840 
 to $132,000,000. After the modification of the tariff, more par 
 ticularly with reference to the promotion of manufactures, 
 American fabrics began to make their appearance among our 
 exports, and the United States, which, at the formation of 
 the Union, exported scarcely any thing except agricultural pro 
 duce, and was dependent upon Europe for nearly all manufac 
 tured articles, had so far advanced in that branch of industry, 
 as to export, in 1823, $3,352,000 of domestic manufactures, 
 and in 1840, $10,614,000. 
 
 Of these the cotton manufactures, which were not enume 
 rated among our exports until 1826, amounted to $3,550,000, 
 and those of iron, to $1,101,000. 
 
 These indications of increased skill, which now appeared in 
 the exports, were but faint evidences of the great benefits con 
 ferred upon the country by the establishment of manufactures 
 at home. The supply of the domestic consumption vastly ex 
 ceeded in importance the amount contributed to its foreign 
 commerce ; and the creation of a home market for its produce, 
 gave a new impulse to the settlement and improvement of the 
 country. The rural districts were enriched and enlivened by 
 the establishment of single factories on the streams that had, 
 till then, flowed in solitude to the sea ; while the manufacturing 
 towns in other districts, sprung up with a vigour and strength, 
 that, in fifteen years, have made them worthy rivals of the great 
 manufacturing towns of the old world. It seemed, however, 
 that the prosperity of those portions of the Union, which de 
 voted themselves to commercial and manufacturing pursuits, 
 excited dissatisfaction and jealousy among the planting interests. 
 An opinion began to prevail, that by obtaining our supplies from 
 
228 
 
 domestic industry, the American market for foreign fabrics 
 would be curtailed, and that there would be a less demand for 
 their peculiar productions abroad. Influenced by this sectional 
 feeling, an opposition was set on foot against the established 
 policy of the country, and after a vehement contest, in which 
 other considerations, which it is unnecessary here to recapitu 
 late, besides those of public policy were mingled, the opposition 
 so far prevailed as to materially modify the commercial system, 
 adopted at the formation of the Union. 
 
 The effort to regulate the trade between the United States 
 and the British West Indies was relinquished on the part of this 
 government, and is now carried on under the sole regulation of 
 British legislation. 
 
 How far this has promoted the navigating interest of this 
 country may be inferred from the fact, that while both govern 
 ments exercised a joint control over the trade, nine-tenths of 
 the commerce was carried on in American vessels ; and that 
 since the acts of Congress regulating the intercourse were re 
 pealed in 1830, by the proclamation of the President, the Brit 
 ish navigator has so far gained upon the American, as to divide 
 the trade equally with him.* In fact, the intercourse between 
 the colonial possessions of England and the United States, is 
 regulated solely with the view of furnishing employment to 
 British tonnage ; and the convenience and interests of these 
 great portions of the western hemisphere, which would be so 
 much promoted by unrestrained commerce, are set aside and 
 disregarded, in order to augment the maritime strength of 
 Great Britain. The trade with the West Indies is coerced by 
 burdening the direct trade with heavy duties, into an indirect 
 
 * Tonnage employed in the trade between the United States and the British 
 Colonies : 
 
 American tonnage. Foreign tonnage. 
 
 British West Indies. British Colonies. \VestIndies. British Colonies. 
 
 1825 . . 102,000 tons. 60,000 7,000 0,000 
 
 1826, . . 97,000 75,000 8,000 9,000 
 
 1839, . 43,000 384,000 ) of this f were 24,000 322,000 
 
 1840, . . 55,000 373,000 $ on Lakes Erie 29,000 388,000 
 
 and Ontario. 
 
229 
 
 trade through New-Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in which the 
 long voyage, or that between those Provinces and the Islands, 
 is exclusively confined to British vessels. 
 
 In like manner, the grain trade between the Western States 
 and England is monopolized by British navigation. The wheat 
 that in the ordinary course of business would come down the 
 Erie Canal, giving employment to American millers, forwarders, 
 merchants, and mariners, is forced, by heavy discriminating 
 duties imposed upon the direct importation, into the route of 
 the St. Lawrence, to build up Kingston, Montreal, and Quebec, 
 and to increase the overgrown marine of the mistress of the 
 seas. 
 
 The commerce on the Lakes has been increased from almost 
 nothing, to a tonnage of half a million annually entering the 
 ports of the United States from Canada; but the whole trans 
 portation across the Atlantic is monopolized by British vessels. 
 
 The same opposition was made to the policy of fostering 
 domestic manufactures by discriminating duties, and with like 
 success. After a contest, in which the opposition was carried 
 to a point inconsistent with their obligations to the Union, its 
 opponents succeeded in obtaining from Congress an act pro 
 viding for a gradual reduction of duties until 1842, when they 
 are to be brought down to 20 per cent, on all articles, without 
 reference to any of those views and principles which have in 
 fluenced statesmen in imposing discriminating duties. From 
 the gradual reduction that has hitherto taken place, our me 
 chanics and manufacturers have been as yet prevented from 
 feeling the full effects of unrestrained competition with Euro 
 pean labour. The great barrier has not yet been thrown 
 down ; still our merchants and mechanics have already felt the 
 evil consequences of government s withdrawing its parental 
 care. The reduction of duties has encouraged excessive im 
 portations of foreign manufactures, and increased the disorders 
 of our currency. Extravagance in the consumption of foreign 
 luxuries has been encouraged in the same degree, that domestic 
 manufactures have been repressed. Importations have been 
 increased, and the country has grown poorer. The whole ex- 
 
230 
 
 ports of bread-stuffs from the United States in 1839, scarcely 
 paid for one third of the silks imported ; while the exported 
 whalebone and oil, the produce of the labour of our hardy 
 mariners who are engaged in the whale fisheries, did not pay 
 for the cigars which were imported into the United States the 
 same year.* A policy which produces such results, can scarcely 
 fail to end in general distress and national bankruptcy. 
 
 Our importers and shipping merchants, also, complain of 
 the disregard of their interests. The vessels of other powers 
 are supplanting ours in the trade between this and the South 
 American states, and four fifths of the importations of foreign 
 goods in this city, have fallen into the hands of French and 
 British agents. 
 
 Had this occurred in a competition where both parties stood 
 upon the same footing, the same cause of complaint would not 
 have existed. But such is not the case. The terms of the 
 contest are unequal. On one side there is freedom, on the 
 other restriction. Our ports and markets are open to other 
 nations, while theirs are hermetically sealed to all articles, 
 which may come into competition with any branch of native 
 industry. This state of things ought not to be tolerated by 
 any independent government ; least of all by one whose very 
 existence grew out of successful opposition to the same system 
 of commercial monopoly. Our interests, as well as our honour, 
 require that our intercourse with foreign nations should be 
 placed upon terms of equality and reciprocity ; that it should 
 not be regulated and controlled solely by foreign legislation. 
 This was the commercial freedom aimed at by our revolution 
 ary ancestors, and we, their children, ought not to be satisfied 
 with less. 
 
 In applying a remedy, practical statesmen will look at the 
 actual state of trade between this country and foreign nations. 
 
 Imports. ExporU. 
 
 1839 Silks, . . $23,088,000 Bread-stuffs, . . . $8,545,000 
 
 Cigars, . . 1,027,000 Rice, 2,460,000 
 
 Whale oil, bone, and 
 
 spermaceti candles, 808,000 
 
231 
 
 For instance, in its intercourse with England, a power enjoying 
 one half of our whole foreign commerce, it meets with two 
 inconveniences, resulting entirely from the commercial legis 
 lation of that government. The first is its colonial policy, by 
 which the carrying trade between the United States and the 
 colonies is practically confined to British vessels. To these 
 pretensions this country should offer a constant resistance. All 
 the territories and islands owning a common head, or controlled 
 by one government, other nations can only regard as one 
 country or empire. Such is the character of the various states 
 and territories represented by the federal government at 
 Washington ; and such too we ought to consider the various 
 islands, provinces and colonies, controlled by the imperial go 
 vernment at London. While we admit the right of all nations 
 to designate the ports which foreign vessels are permitted to 
 enter ; we must also regard as unfriendly the exercise of that 
 right in a manner plainly intended to secure the greater part of 
 the carrying trade to that party. 
 
 The mode of retaliation, and the time when it is to be en 
 forced, may depend upon many other considerations; but set 
 ting those aside, and none can doubt, who is jealous of his 
 country s rights, that the grasping and monopolizing character 
 of the laws of England, regulating our intercourse with her 
 colonies, would justify us in confining the admission of her ves 
 sels to the ports of the Chesapeake, or any other part of the 
 Union, which should have the effect of diminishing her share 
 of the carrying trade. 
 
 The second, and indeed chief inconvenience, to which Ame 
 rican commerce is subjected by her laws, grows out of the 
 general principle pervading her commercial system, by which 
 she seeks to secure the supply of her own consumption to her 
 own subjects. Her revenue laws all aim to secure her home 
 market to herself. The importation of everything that can be 
 advantageously produced by British capital, or British industry, 
 is either prohibited, or subjected to heavy duties, which operate 
 as a bounty to the British producer. 
 
 Practically, these laws exclude the agricultural productions 
 
of the whole northern and western states from the British mar 
 ket, or compel them to seek admission under the guise of colo 
 nial produce, and with the view of fostering the growth of her 
 commercial marine. 
 
 This policy of excluding bread-stuffs from the British market 
 is the more objectionable, as it was adopted at a time which 
 would warrant the conclusion, that it was specially intended 
 to operate against the United States. Before their separation 
 from England, the duty on wheat imported into that island was 
 merely nominal. But directly after the formation of the fede 
 ral government, a new policy was adopted towards this country. 
 The first step was to exclude American vessels from the colo 
 nial trade. The second, to impose a high duty on the impor 
 tation of bread-stuffs. This was done in 1791 ; and it may be 
 safely asserted, that the Corn Laws of England, which form 
 so great an obstacle to free trade between the two nations, 
 have originated as much out of jealousy of this country, as out 
 of a regard for her landed interests. Their effect certainly is 
 to prevent those states, which depend chiefly upon agriculture, 
 from paying for their importations in the productions which 
 they can most readily raise ; and to compel them, either to de 
 vote their industry to other employments less suitable to their 
 condition, or so to reduce the price of their produce as to force 
 an admission into the foreign market in spite of the duty. The 
 operation is injurious to the grain growing states ; and any in 
 jury to so great and important a portion of the Union, cannot 
 be too carefully looked into, nor too speedily redressed. 
 
 The practical remedy adopted at an early period of our 
 history, was, by discriminating duties, to encourage all manu 
 factures essential to our national independence, and to compen 
 sate for the loss of a market abroad, by promoting a variety 
 of employments in the country, and thus creating a market at 
 home. 
 
 The results of this policy are manifest to all. Indeed, it 
 would be difficult to find a more forcible illustration of the ad 
 vantages of this policy, than is afforded by the contrast between 
 those states whose citizens have adopted a variety of employ- 
 
ments, and those that have devoted themselves to agricultural 
 pursuits, during the late convulsions of the commercial world* 
 While the planting and agricultural states have been (and are 
 still) in the greatest distress from the low price of their staples, 
 which they are obliged to sacrifice to pay for their foreign 
 importations ; the manufacturing states, more independent of 
 supplies from abroad, experience but little difficulty, and no 
 actual distress. 
 
 The question now to be decided by the American people is, 
 whether this policy shall be given up, and the commerce and 
 manufactures of this country abandoned by a government, 
 which was established chiefly for their protection, to the care 
 and guardianship of foreign legislation. 
 
 The argument used in favour of the abandonment of this 
 policy is, that it conflicts with the principles of free trade. If 
 these advocates of free trade could show, that those powers 
 with whom we had commercial relations, practiced upon that 
 theory in their intercourse with the United States, there might 
 be some ground for urging upon this country an adherence to 
 its maxims. But such is not the fact. The great maritime 
 powers of the world have surrounded themselves with a com 
 mercial quarantine. 
 
 England takes nothing from the United States that she can 
 produce at home ; and France is equally careful to protect her 
 own subjects from American competition. Our trade now 
 chiefly consists in purchasing from them freely all that we 
 require ; and then the productions of our industry are forced 
 off in all markets to which they are admitted, in order to provide 
 the means of discharging the debts incurred to those countries. 
 In such a state of commercial intercourse, our conformity to the 
 theory of free trade is but exposing our interests, without de 
 fence, to the systematic assault of open enemies. It is relying 
 upon the pacific principle of non-resistance, as a sure protection 
 against a world in arms. Under such a policy, our citizens are 
 influenced or controlled in the direction of their industry, not 
 by the force of natural causes, but by legislation, alien in its 
 character, and hostile in its views. So far as the hope of a 
 
 Dd 
 
234 
 
 foreign market is to influence them in the choice of employ 
 ments, they are compelled to devote themselves to the produc 
 tion of such articles as can find admission in that market. 
 
 So far as these laws now operate upon the United States, 
 they confine their citizens to the cultivation of the soil, and even 
 such productions are received only in a raw or unmanufactured 
 state. Nor is this the worst view of the question. The grain 
 growing states, whose agricultural productions amount to nearly 
 twice as much as those of the planting states, are interdicted 
 from sending any portion of the results of their industry to pay 
 for their consumption of foreign goods. The consequence is, 
 a forced and unnatural course of trade, deeply injurious to more 
 than three fifths of the Union, in point of numbers, and a much 
 greater proportion, when wealth and resources are taken into 
 consideration. 
 
 To compensate them for the loss of a foreign market, the 
 revenue laws have co-operated with the laws of political 
 economy, in creating a domestic market. 
 
 Our fellow citizens have been induced, by discriminating 
 duties, to adopt other employments; and those who are thus 
 drawn from the cultivation of the soil, become consumers of 
 the productions of those who remain. 
 
 Since the adoption of this policy, a large portion of the com 
 munity have become manufacturers and mechanics ; and agri 
 cultural produce, which before that event was too low to 
 compensate the farmer, has found a market at home at good 
 prices. 
 
 Nor has this advantage been counterbalanced by a corres 
 ponding advance in the imported articles, to the manufacture 
 of which our countrymen have been induced to apply them 
 selves. Whether it has been owing to domestic competition, 
 as asserted by the friends of domestic industry, or to other 
 causes, as has been maintained by their opponents ; it is certainly 
 true that the chief articles, whose production in this country 
 has been encouraged by discriminating or protecting duties, 
 have been lower in the United States since the adoption of the 
 protective tariff. For instance, cotton and woollen cloths, 
 
235 
 
 bituminous coal, have all fallen considerably in price since 1 824 ; 
 and the last article has fallen in the face of an advance in 
 England. Indeed, it does not require much sagacity to foresee, 
 that the production of an article here, must operate against the 
 foreign manufacturer; nor to infer, that if the United States 
 had imported from Europe all the articles that the protective 
 system has induced us to produce at home, they would have 
 been compelled to buy them at greatly enhanced prices, and 
 that our indebtedness abroad and commercial distress would 
 have been much increased. In fact, it may be advanced as an 
 axiom in political economy, that no great and populous country 
 can be dependent on foreign countries for either of the great, 
 articles of national consumption food, clothing, or fuel. They 
 may import a portion of any, or all of them ; but a reliance on 
 foreign industry for the greater part of these chief necessaries 
 for man, imposes a restraint on the growth of a country, which 
 must for ever prevent it from taking rank in the first class of 
 nations. Since the United States have approximated to that 
 rank, their ability to supply themselves with those articles, has 
 greatly increased tinder the encouragement and protection of 
 our national policy, and they have been thus enabled to sustain 
 themselves in their onward career. 
 
 For instance, the domestic trade in anthracite coal commenced 
 in 1825, and it has now grown to the enormous amount of one 
 million of tons annually ; sufficient to employ double the tonnage 
 employed in the trade between this country and Great Britain, 
 in transporting it to the United States ; and it is scarcely neces 
 sary to observe, that such a demand must have made a serious 
 impression on the coal market in England. Our dependence 
 on foreign manufactories for woollen and cotton cloths, has 
 also been diminished. In 1830, just before adequate protection 
 was given to the woollen manufacture, Great Britain exported 
 101,294 pieces of woollen cloths to the United States, and in 
 1840, this exportation had fallen off to 46,945 pieces. 
 
 In the article of cottons, the triumph of the American manu 
 facturer is still more complete. In 1825, the year when a similar 
 degree of protection was given to that branch of industry, so 
 
236 
 
 much of the domestic consumption was supplied from abroad, 
 that the importation of white cottons amounted to $3,3^6,000, 
 and the printed cottons to $7,710,000. Since then, there has 
 been a gradual reduction, and last year the importation of 
 white cottons amounted to but $917,000, and those printed to 
 $3,894,000. We have, too, become competitors in this article 
 for the foreign market. Our exportation of cotton cloths of 
 American manufacture, which did not then appear in our list 
 of exportations, now almost equals the importation, amounting 
 last year to 83,550,000. 
 
 Are we to pause in this career ? Are we to recede from this 
 position ? Is the policy which has produced such results, filled 
 our land with manufacturing villages and towns, and brought 
 about a state of prosperity and happiness rarely equalled 
 among nations, to be totally abandoned ? 
 
 An abandonment of the policy would bring the labour of 
 Europe into direct competition with our own, and expose us to 
 all the fluctuation and occasional distress to which the manu 
 facturing population of the old world is subjected. The first 
 result would be, to compel the American operative to work for 
 the same wages with the under-fed and over-worked labourer of 
 Europe, remunerated for his unremitting toil at a rate hardly 
 sufficient for a scanty support, and sustained in adverse seasons 
 by a pauper allowance from the parish. Such is the natural 
 and inevitable effect of unrestrained competition. This he 
 must do, or abandon his business. But to what employment 
 would he resort ? The same competition and the same fate 
 would attend him in the shop of the mechanic ; and the me 
 chanics, as well as the manufacturers, must expect to be brought 
 down to the same wages as those of Europe, or to adopt some 
 pursuit where they will not be exposed to European competi 
 tion. If they devote themselves to agriculture, it is possible 
 that the fertility of the soil and the low price of land might 
 enable them to compete with the European cultivator ; but 
 such an increase of agricultural produce in our market, must 
 inevitably reduce the price at home, until they shall be driven 
 back to the workshop with depressed spirits, and at such a rate 
 
237 
 
 of wages as will enable the American manufacturers to com 
 pete with the European. 
 
 It is no answer to this, to say, that our agricultural produce 
 can be sent to a foreign market. This cannot take place, until 
 its price is so low, that it becomes profitable to sell it abroad 
 in the face of an onerous duty, intended to be prohibitory. 
 That is, until the American farmer is willing to pay three or 
 four dollars per barrel on flour, towards the support of a foreign 
 government, in order to have the privilege of selling it at the 
 current price. 
 
 The policy of free trade, as advocated by these new 
 teachers, aims at a reduction of wages in the United States; 
 or, in other words, to place the American and the European 
 labourer upon the footing of free competition. Such is the 
 proposition, and no reasoning can avoid the conclusion, that an 
 abandonment of the protective tariff would produce a general 
 reduction of wages in the United States. 
 
 It is unimportant whether this results from immediate com 
 petition in branches of manufactures that continue to be carried 
 on, or from a relinquishment of many now prosecuted, and 
 the devotion of the labour and capital thus released, to the 
 prosecution of those which would be still kept up, except that 
 the latter mode would cause greater confusion and distress. It 
 is undeniable that such a result must follow an abandonment 
 of our long established national policy ; and the immediate 
 consequence of any great prostration of our mechanical pur 
 suits, resulting from such a change, would be to render the 
 country dependent on other nations for essential supplies, with 
 out any diminution of price, except for the short period required 
 for the overthrow of our own manufactures. By this implicit 
 adherence to the theory of free trade on our part, without re 
 quiring it from others, it is not pretended that any reduction in 
 prices is to be effected except by a reduction of wages. A re 
 duction in wages is the ultimate end to be accomplished. This 
 is the great object, for the achievement of which, our factories 
 are to be prostrated, and our workshops shut up. 
 
 Are the people of the United States desirous of such a result? 
 
238 
 
 Upon the existing rate of wages in this country depends much 
 of the peculiar structure of society. It is owing to the higher 
 compensation of labour, that the mass of our labouring popu 
 lation are enabled to educate themselves, and to maintain their 
 families in a state of comfort and happiness unknown to the 
 operatives of other nations. This makes them a free and in 
 dependent nation not merely independent of foreign control, 
 but in their individual feelings and habits of thinking and act 
 ing. To this they owe that state of contentment and tran 
 quillity, which hasjpreserved the country from domestic commo 
 tions, rebellions, and civil wars that conservative spirit and 
 respect for the law, which has proved a more efficient guardian 
 of the public peace than standing armies, or legions of military 
 police. To this they owe the enlightened spirit which, in spite 
 of occasional outbreaks of party feeling, has predominated in 
 our public councils, and guided us to a position among the 
 powers of the earth, that make us alike an object of jealousy 
 and dread to despotic governments, and a beacon of hope to 
 the friends of liberal institutions. Labour here is honourable ; 
 and the chief men in our republic are all indebted for their 
 rank, and the respect paid them by their countrymen, to the 
 unremitting industry by which their fortunes have been built up. 
 
 The higher rate of compensation given in the United States 
 to labour, is the chief cause of attraction to the enterprising 
 and industrious of older nations ; and it has made this country 
 the asylum, not merely of those oppressed by political or reli 
 gious intolerance, but of that more numerous class, who, by 
 adverse circumstances and the iron grasp of poverty, are pre 
 vented from obtaining an honest maintenance in their native 
 land. In truth, it is to this very cause that we owe nearly all 
 that distinguishes us from other countries ; and far, far distant 
 be the day which diminishes the compensation of labour, so as 
 to reduce the free American labourer to the same dependent 
 and wretched condition, in which aristocratic institutions and 
 unjust laws have placed the operatives of Europe. 
 
 All that is paid by the property of the country for the pro 
 tection of domestic industry, and the reward of American la- 
 
239 
 
 bour, is not a useless expenditure. It is a contribution for the 
 maintenance of our republican institutions ; an expense incurred 
 to increase the mechanical and manufacturing skill of the coun 
 try ; a tax paid for the support and education of that class, 
 which, like a broad foundation, sustains the superstructure of 
 the state ; and he cannot be regarded as a friend of the re 
 public, who advocates a policy that will curtail the wages of 
 the free American labourer, and bring him down to a level with 
 the over-worked and degraded operative of the old world. 
 
 On this point we take issue with our opponents, and we call 
 upon all Americans who are zealous for the independence and 
 prosperity of their country, to aid us in our efforts : to collect 
 and circulate information upon those important subjects, until 
 public opinion shall exhibit itself in a fixed resolve to protect 
 and cherish American interests. Let the popular will show 
 itself determined to promote those views, which were delibe 
 rately adopted at the formation of our government, by Wash 
 ington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and the other patriots, 
 who then met in this city, to put in operation the free institu 
 tions which their wisdom had contrived, and their valour had 
 established. To the people, and them firstly and lastly, we 
 appeal, to carry out this policy, and by their enlightened and 
 deliberate determination to vindicate, through their chosen 
 agents, their commercial independence, and the rights of Ame 
 rican industry, against the insidious and hostile legislation of 
 foreign governments. To promote domestic interests, the 
 Home League was established, without reference to former 
 party distinctions ; and to impress upon our public representa 
 tives the propriety of guarding and promoting those interests, 
 our efforts will be directed. The occasion is propitious, and 
 the necessity urgent, and we call upon all who love their own 
 country above all others who prefer domestic to foreign inte 
 rests, to unite their exertions to ours, until the concentrated 
 efforts of the advocates and friends of American interests shall 
 be crowned with complete success, and a policy truly Ameri 
 can and national be found to prevail in every department of 
 our government. 
 
REPORT 
 
 TO THE 
 
 NATIONAL CONVENTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HELD IN THE CITY OF NEW-YORK, 
 
 OCTOBER 13, 1842. 
 
 IT is with no ordinary feelings of satisfaction that the mem 
 bers of the Home League are enabled to look upon the occur 
 rences of this year. The headlong career of the government 
 in prostrating our most important interests to gratify the 
 cupidity of European manufacturers, or to practically refute 
 the visionary theories of nullifying abstractionists has been 
 arrested, and under the strong and determined expression of 
 the public opinion of those who live by their own industry, a 
 tariff has been passed, which, by affording ample protection to 
 American labour, has given a new impulse to the enterprise of 
 the country, and justified the confidence of those, who regard 
 their own countrymen as able to furnish from their own skill 
 and ingenuity the chief articles of domestic consumption. But 
 although a decided step has been taken towards re-establishing 
 our domestic prosperity, much yet remains to be done. By the 
 policy systematically pursued by the government for the last 
 twelve years, a severe blow has been given to the public credit 
 of the United States. In the great forum of nations, our national 
 character has been impeached ; and if we set aside all high con 
 siderations belonging to a patriotic and statesmanlike view of 
 this question, still, in reference to mere pecuniary advantages 
 
 E e 
 
242 
 
 attached to unsullied honour on the part of a government, more 
 has been lost by the reckless manner in which those who during 
 that period have been entrusted with the management of affairs, 
 have contracted debts without providing any means of repay 
 ment, than all the sums that they ever promised to save when, 
 smitten with the rage of reform, the people placed them in 
 power. 
 
 The public debt of the states thus contracted, forms one of 
 the greatest obstacles to the restoration of general prosperity; 
 and while it continues to exist without provision for the payment 
 of either principal or interest, it must be productive of great na 
 tional injury and loss. The amount of this debt at this time is 
 8198,000,000, of which 8103,000,000 was incurred by eight 
 states, that neglect or refuse to pay the interest. Of these only 
 one, Mississippi, has openly repudiated : the others plead in 
 ability ; although in the cases of Pennsylvania and Maryland, 
 the plea of inability is as dishonest as open repudiation. Be 
 this as it may, it is clear, that in the existing state of the currency 
 and of business, the Western states have incurred debts they 
 are unable to pay. 
 
 They have no wealth but agricultural produce, and the ex 
 pense of transporting it to market renders it of comparatively 
 little value in reimbursing their debts. In order to enable them 
 to pay them, they must be aided ; and nowhere can they look 
 for aid except to the general government. That government 
 is interested in restoring their credit, as its own credit is inti 
 mately connected with that of the several members of the 
 Union, Credit depends not only upon means but upon cha 
 racter. A reputation for integrity, a high sense of national 
 honour, affords better pledges for the faithful discharge of na 
 tional obligations, than all the wealth of the Indies in hands 
 which are insensible to the suggestions of justice. 
 
 The credit of the Union, as well as that of the states, has 
 already been deeply affected by the failure on the part of some 
 of them to pay their bonds. The public opinion of the world 
 has already arraigned the whole Union as defaulters in their 
 engagements. They have been regarded as members of the 
 
243 
 
 same family, and it is not remarkable that they have been 
 identified in reputation. 
 
 This Union under one government, through which only they 
 are known to other nations, makes them one not only in peace 
 and war, but in good and evil repute. We cannot avoid this 
 responsibility by asserting, that Mississippi alone is responsible 
 to the world for her debts as a state. By our Constitution we 
 have exempted her from being sued to enforce the perform 
 ance of her contracts. As a state, she is only responsible under 
 the law of nations, for the performance of her obligations 
 towards the citizens of other powers. Their governments, in 
 enforcing their performance, can only do so in the mode pro 
 vided for the arbitrament of national controversies by nego 
 tiation or the sword. But in the adjustment of all claims on 
 the part of other countries upon the states of this Union, the 
 Federal Government alone can be addressed. The separate 
 states cannot treat nor enter into any agreement with a foreign 
 government. That is their sole representative in their relations 
 with foreign powers. If a demand be made by France or 
 England, in behalf of their subjects, for payment of state bonds, 
 it must be presented through the national government. If war 
 is to be declared, in the absence of all other remedy to enforce 
 payment, it must be waged against the United States, and it is 
 the blood and treasure of the whole Union that must be ex 
 pended to sustain the dishonest cause of repudiating states. 
 
 It is then absurd for us to say, that we have no concern with 
 those repudiated bonds. The consequences of the act must 
 fall upon the whole Union, as well as upon those dishonest states 
 who have violated their engagements. It is a matter of high 
 national concern to wipe off this stain upon the country. No 
 subject is more deserving the attention of an American states 
 man than that of resuscitating public credit. 
 
 It cannot be done entirely by direct taxation. The debts of 
 Indiana and Illinois are beyond the ability of their population. 
 Their discharge can only be effected by the aid of the general 
 government ; and by that aid, efficiently given, provision can 
 be at once made, by which the credit of these and other 
 
244 
 
 gtates can be restored, and the prosperity of the whole country 
 re-established. 
 
 Is there not something, too, in the character of these engage 
 ments, which peculiarly recommends them to the attention of 
 the national government? 
 
 The greatest portion of the state debts was contracted during 
 and subsequent to the first administration of General Jackson. 
 Previous to his accession to the Presidency, the currency of the 
 whole Union had been especially under the supervision of Con 
 gress. It had been thought, that to regulate so essential an 
 element of national prosperity, and to provide a medium of 
 domestic exchanges, was not unworthy of attention. So, too, 
 the improvement of the means of internal intercourse: the 
 removing obstructions from harbours and those vast rivers 
 formed by nature to bind this extensive country together under 
 one government ; the aiding, by liberal appropriations, the en 
 terprising efforts of state corporations to construct canals and 
 rail-roads, were deemed fit objects for the encouragement of 
 Congress. 
 
 This policy, commenced during Mr. Jefferson s administra 
 tion, was enlarged in proportion to the augmented means of 
 the treasury ; and as the period for the extinction of the na 
 tional debt approached, the country looked forward with hope 
 and eager expectation to the time, when, by the release of 
 810,000,000, annually appropriated by law to the sinking fund, 
 ample means would be placed at the disposal of Congress to 
 promote internal improvements throughout the Union. 
 
 The necessity of making a great effort to improve the internal 
 communications between different portions of the country was 
 every where acknowledged. While the cultivator of the soil 
 was compelled to transport his productions to market over 
 roads, which in spring and autumn resembled ditches rather 
 than roads ; or down rivers, where snags and bars often destroy 
 the labours of a season, the cost of transportation absorbed too 
 great a proportion of his crop. He felt, that an improvement 
 in the means of transportation was a direct benefit to him ; 
 and that it would render a numerous class rich, who were now 
 
245 
 
 kept poor by the enormous expense of carrying their produce 
 to market. In the West this feeling pervaded the whole com 
 munity. The practical benefits conferred upon this state by 
 the Erie Canal had opened their eyes to the great advantages 
 of an improved system of communication with the seaboard; 
 and in looking round for the means of constructing canals and 
 roads to that great avenue, and removing the natural obsta 
 cles, which time had created in their magnificent rivers, they 
 found that the great source of indirect revenue the customs 
 was vested in the national government, and that the proceeds 
 of the public lands were periodically drawn from the West, to 
 be expended under the same authority. 
 
 Under such circumstances, it was not surprising that they 
 should expect some aid towards objects of such paramount 
 importance from the general government. The national inte 
 rests required such expenditure, and their own deficiency of 
 means compelled them to ask it from that source. The prac 
 tice under almost every administration had sanctioned such 
 appropriations ; and after the deliberate sanction given by Con 
 gress in the last year of Mr. Monroe s administration to a sys 
 tem of internal improvement, under the authority of the general 
 government, they had good ground to look forward with confi 
 dent hope to the time, when, upon the extinction of the public 
 debt, the large surplus revenue, that would then be at the dis 
 posal of Congress, would be applied to the construction of 
 public works, which should command the approbation and pro 
 mote the prosperity of the country. 
 
 That moment at length arrived ; but it brought with it bitter 
 disappointment and still more bitter fruits. The government 
 was in hands that no longer sought to promote the general wel 
 fare, but to find a mode to curtail its powers and abridge the 
 sphere prescribed in the constitution for their exercise. The 
 expenditure of its surplus revenue for the internal improvement 
 of the country was declared to be beyond its authority, and, 
 after rejecting a national bank as both inexpedient and uncon 
 stitutional, the regulation of exchanges and the currency, and 
 the promotion of internal improvements, was abandoned to the 
 
240 
 
 care of the state governments. It was in the assumption of 
 these powers that the financial difficulties of the states origi 
 nated. The performance of these duties, which required ex 
 penditures beyond the means of the new states, but which were 
 imperiously demanded by the wants of their population, caused 
 a rapid increase of state debts. 
 
 Previous to the repudiation of these powers by the national 
 government, the state debts amounted to but $26,470,420. Du 
 ring the interval, from 1830 to 1835, new debts were created, 
 amounting to $43,512,766, and the next five years produced a 
 further increase of $134,896,318, making in all $204,879,504. 
 It is a striking fact, too, that most of this great augmentation 
 took place in the states that now make no provision for their 
 interest. The following table shows the debts of those states 
 in 1830, and their present debt : 
 
 1830. 1840. 
 
 Pennsylvania, . . $6,300,000 $33,016,149 
 
 Maryland, . . . 676,689 15,000,000 
 
 Indiana, .... none. 10,064,000 
 
 Illinois, .... " 11,772,550 
 
 Michigan, ... " 5,340,000 
 
 Arkansas " 3,100,000 
 
 Florida " 3,950,000 
 
 Mississippi, ... " 12,000,000 
 
 $6,976,689 $94,242,699 
 
 The increase in the whole public debt of the states from 1830 
 to 1840 amounted to $178,409,084, of which $87,366,010 took 
 place in the defaulting states. 
 
 This great increase of indebtedness was the legitimate result 
 of the new policy of the general government, and might have 
 been easily prevented by the exercise of ordinary sagacity on 
 the part of those to whose hands it was entrusted. Annual 
 appropriations of the large surplus revenue by Congress for 
 internal improvements, would have satisfied the public expec- 
 
247 
 
 tation with the gradual construction of all necessary public 
 works, and would have prevented those spasmodic efforts, that 
 were made when the national government withdrew from the 
 performance of its duty. 
 
 It was easy to foresee that these efforts would be made. The 
 greater portion of the works proposed were indispensable. 
 The community required them from the same motive that a 
 mechanic requires tools, or a farmer agricultural implements, 
 and the public mind was excited in devising means to construct 
 them. They were beyond the reach of individual or even cor 
 porate means, and the government alone, as it was believed, 
 had adequate means to complete them. 
 
 The refusal of General Jackson to sanction any appropriations 
 from the public treasury for such purposes, left no alternative 
 but to apply to the state legislatures, and they readily assented 
 to the request. 
 
 At this period, there was a large and increasing surplus in the 
 national treasury, and its removal, by his orders, to the state 
 banks, gave an impulse not only to private enterprises, but also 
 a powerful support to state credit. The ease with which 
 money was obtained induced the states to embark in great 
 undertakings, many of which, under a more prudent adminis 
 tration of public affairs, would have been postponed to a more 
 convenient season. A large amount of government stocks was 
 authorized to be issued, which in a few years swelled the sum 
 of the state debts to 8205,000,000. 
 
 The objects for which these stocks were issued, show how 
 directly this debt originated in the state governments being 
 compelled to assume the performance of duties properly apper 
 taining to the general government. Of this debt, stocks to the 
 amount of $112,072,599 were issued for canals and rail-roads, 
 and $52,640,000 for banking purposes. The latter being 
 deemed necessary, and actually recommended by the men then 
 in power, to supply the capital withdrawn by the United States 
 Bank from the southern and western states. 
 
 Under these circumstances, is it a just and proper course to 
 be adopted by the national government, to turn its back upon 
 
248 
 
 the indebted states, and to leave them to the embarrassing con 
 sequence of their imprudence ? Is it not in some degree answer 
 able for their being involved in this load of debt ? Had those 
 entrusted with its constitutional powers exercised them with a 
 due regard to the interests of the whole country, and followed 
 the wise and prudent course, which in the preceding adminis 
 tration had been sanctioned by experience and justified by suc 
 cess, can there be any rational doubt, that the wide spread 
 desolation and distress resulting from the novel policy of the go 
 vernment would have been averted ? Is there not, then, a strong 
 obligation resting upon the general government to do something 
 to remedy evils in no small degree attributable to the repudia 
 tion of its own powers ? Especially when by so doing it raises 
 its own credit, redeems the honour of the country, does justice 
 to the foreign creditor, and avoids the discussion of those ques 
 tions which, sooner or later, must be forced upon its considera 
 tion by foreign powers, when they shall find no other mode of 
 obtaining payment. 
 
 This surely is an object as well worthy the attention of an 
 American Congress as any that has heretofore engrossed its 
 deliberations. 
 
 It remains to inquire in what mode this desirable end can be 
 attained by the interposition of Congress. 
 
 The aid contemplated under Mr. Clay s bill for the distribu 
 tion of the proceeds of the public lands is not in itself sufficient. 
 It is very desirable as far as it goes ; and ought to be insisted 
 on, not only as an encouragement to the stales to make an effort 
 to meet their engagements, but as a restitution of property 
 which was vested in the general government for national pur 
 poses, and which is now relieved from all lien by payment of 
 the public debt. 
 
 It is, however, inadequate to accomplish the desired end, al 
 though it serves to indicate a means by which it can be accom 
 plished. 
 
 A certain portion of the public lands can be set apart and 
 pledged to the specific purpose of redeeming a stock issued by 
 the general government, bearing a low rate of interest, say 
 
249 
 
 $ per cent : this stock to be issued for the redemption of* 
 state stocks at par, to such as should choose to make an ex 
 change. 
 
 A large portion of the stock of the defaulting states would 
 be thus absorbed ; and the residue, improved in value, would be 
 held by its owners, in the hope of obtaining payment in full. 
 The states not requiring aid could take their proper portions, 
 either in lands, 3 per cent, stocks, or in the stocks of their sister 
 states, at option. A tract of less than 80,000,000 of acres, set 
 apart for this purpose, would serve to absorb this debt, that now 
 hangs like a mill-stone upon the community. 
 
 It would not, it is true, discharge all the state debts, nor is it 
 necessary that this should be done. It would, however, extin 
 guish so great a portion of those on which no interest is paid, 
 as to encourage the defaulting states to make a vigorous effort 
 to comply with their engagements. If further aid be required, 
 let it be extended by liberal appropriations made by Congress 
 to complete those great national works in Indiana, Illinois, 
 Michigan, and in other states, which are now lying useless for 
 want of means to complete them. An immense amount of 
 property, now valueless, would be brought into active use ; and 
 the benefits proposed from the construction of those works 
 being realized, would not only stimulate the people of those 
 states to exert themselves, but would add to their ability to dis 
 charge their obligations. For instance, the Illinois and Michigan 
 Canal, which unites the upper lakes and the valley of the Mis 
 sissippi, is already partly finished ; when completed, it would 
 yield a large and increasing revenue ; but it is now entirely 
 valueless, from the inability of the state to appropriate another 
 dollar towards its construction. 
 
 A comparatively small appropriation by Congress, for which 
 ample security could be taken by alien on the tolls, would serve 
 to complete it, and in so doing would not merely give value to 
 the work already accomplished, but would improve the property 
 in its vicinity, and encourage and enable the citizens of that 
 state to make proper efforts to meet engagements that now 
 seem beyond their means. 
 
 rf 
 
250 
 
 In many other states a similar condition of affairs exists, and 
 like effects could be produced by the same means. 
 
 The objection that has been sometimes urged from the alleged 
 want of constitutional power to make internal improvements, 
 is utterly devoid of all reasonable pretence. Even the adminis 
 tration of General Jackson, hostile as he was to appropriations 
 of this character, was compelled by sheer necessity to assent 
 to them to such an extent as to obliterate all distinction, on the 
 score of the Constitution, between those it sanctioned and those 
 it condemned. It would be difficult to find any internal im 
 provements which could not be justified in principle by the 
 appropriations made from 1830 to 1837, for roads in Ohio, In 
 diana, Illinois, Maine, Michigan and Arkansas, and for improv 
 ing the Genesee, Huron, Black and Grand Rivers in Ohio and 
 Connecticut, and Ashtabula Creeks. 
 
 There is as little force in the objection made to these appro 
 priations on the score of expediency. 
 
 Setting aside the considerations growing out of the peculiar 
 circumstances in which the debtor states are now placed, and 
 viewing it merely as a mode of granting public aid to internal 
 improvements, there are strong grounds for exercising this 
 power, especially in works of a national character, by Congress. 
 While the aid granted does not go beyond the surplus funds in 
 the treasury, it is impossible that it should give rise to a spirit 
 of extravagant speculative improvement. The vast extent of 
 country over which these improvements are to be extended, 
 forms in itself an obstacle to improvements of this character. 
 If made simply from surplus revenues, the means provided 
 from that source would be scarce adequate to the construction 
 of works of indispensable necessity ; and if, by any combination 
 in Congress, appropriations should be made beyond that limit, 
 the people would take the alarm and check extravagant expen 
 ditures, before they had involved the government to an unwar 
 rantable extent. 
 
 A public debt, that would appear small when incurred in 
 separate sums by twenty-six states, would have shocked the 
 public mind in the aggregate as extravagant and monstrous for 
 on government. 
 
251 
 
 It cannot be believed, even by the most bigoted partisan, 
 that so large a public debt would have been authorized by 
 Congress, as that which was incurred by the states, when the 
 general government shook off its responsibility, and disclaimed 
 any interest in, or control over, the great question of internal 
 improvements. If the policy of applying the surplus revenues 
 to that end had been continued, a gradual" improvement would 
 have been made in the most important channels of intercom 
 munication without inconvenience to the country, and the crisis 
 brought about by a departure from that policy would have 
 been averted. 
 
 The improvements, too, would have been more judiciously 
 made. The national government has already in its employ a 
 corps of competent engineers men not depending for employ 
 ment upon local proprietors, who, in many instances, have set 
 on foot the state canals and rail-roads, but independent in their 
 position, and looking to the location of the works solely in a 
 professional point of view. 
 
 Receiving authentic information from^such a source, repre 
 senting the whole Union, and with so many indisputably essen 
 tial works pressing upon its attention, is it not certain that Con 
 gress would not have been betrayed into the construction of 
 many of the merely speculative projects, that have so materially 
 augmented the load of state debt. 
 
 Independent of the reluctance evinced by a certain class to 
 any expenditure of public money, the local predilections of 
 members whose districts were not immediately benefited by a 
 proposed improvement, would present an obstacle almost insur 
 mountable to an appropriation for any object not clearly national. 
 
 If, by improper combinations, any extravagant charge should be 
 made upon the treasury, its amount would be much more likely 
 to affect public attention, and to draw down the rebuke of the 
 people when in the aggregate, than if distributed among the 
 several states. 
 
 Under such a policy the great national routes would be 
 gradually established, the Western rivers cleared of the obstruc 
 tions which have been deposited there in the course of ages, and 
 
252 
 
 the harbours on the Atlantic and on the lakes improved to 
 meet the wants of our growing commerce. 
 
 A national character, too, would be given to such works, and 
 they would be combined into a system, so as to promote the 
 general welfare more perfectly under the supervision of Con 
 gress than of the states. We should not see Maryland nor 
 New-Jersey levy a tax on the citizens of other states passing 
 through their territories, under the pretence of granting charters 
 to rail-road companies. 
 
 The absurd and rather discreditable disputes in relation to 
 transporting the mail on rail-roads, which have characterized 
 the last few years, would be obviated, and an efficiency would 
 be given to the Post Office Department, greatly promoting the 
 public convenience. 
 
 It is not contemplated under this policy, that the general 
 government should take upon itself the construction of all in 
 ternal improvements : but simply that it should aid in those of 
 a national character ; and that in the present emergency it should 
 lend its powerful arm to extricate the states from their existing 
 difficulties. There is a wide difference between a judicious 
 system of constructing and aiding in the construction of national 
 works; and the disclaiming of powers which were vested in 
 Congress for wise purposes, and which should be exercised as 
 far as the national finances will permit. 
 
 Indeed, nothing less than a liberal exercise of these powers 
 will or should satisfy the hardy and increasing population of the 
 West. 
 
 The new states, scions of the old thirteen, have not gone into 
 the wilderness like outcast Ishmaelites, severed for ever from tho 
 parent stock. They still form part of the great republic, and in 
 a national point of view, it is wise and just to let them feel that 
 they are objects of national care and affection that the national 
 government is willing to expend for their benefit and conve 
 nience a portion of the monies annually drawn from them, 
 whether directly from the sale of the public lands, or indirectly 
 through the customs. 
 
 The rapid increase of this portion of the Union in population 
 
253 
 
 and agricultural resources, demonstrates the propriety of aiding 
 states thus situated, in improving their communications with the 
 seaboard. 
 
 Every dollar judiciously expended in that way, brings an 
 adequate return. In a national point of view, and considered 
 simply with reference to the increase of the common wealth, 
 every dollar thus expended doubles itself in five years. 
 
 If the augmented value of the land through which they pass 
 be taken into view, the calculation will appear to fall far short 
 of the true estimate. The western part of this state shows a 
 much greater increase since the construction of the Erie Canal 
 than ten times its cost, and it can scarcely be doubted, that its 
 rapid growth in wealth has been in no inconsiderable degree 
 produced by the diminution of expenses in transporting its pro 
 duce to market. Adopt a similar policy in relation to the West, 
 and the national wealth, its commerce and resources, will be 
 incalculably increased. It is almost the only way, in which the 
 national government can extend its expenditure to that part of 
 the Union. The army and the navy are stationed elsewhere. 
 The expenditures for the Atlantic harbours, for custom-houses, 
 the mint, and the departments, are all made on the seaboard. 
 
 The West can be benefited only by internal improvement, and 
 it is the glory of such policy that it benefits all parts of the 
 Union. The manufacturers of the East and the New- York mer 
 chants are as much interested in diminishing the expense of 
 transportation to the interior as its own inhabitants. - The pro 
 duce of the West is made cheaper to its consumers on the sea 
 board ; and the farmers buy more foreign commodities with the 
 same crop. 
 
 So, too, the South will find the value of its peculiar productions 
 enhanced in the same manner ; and its planters, instead of set 
 tling on the banks of the rivers, will extend themselves along 
 the lines of the national rail-roads. 
 
 What advantages this part of the Union may derive from a 
 system of roads, that enable a body of troops to move rapidly 
 over a large extent of territory, in case of internal commotions 
 among its servile population, they can best appreciate. 
 
254 
 
 The whole country is undoubtedly rendered incalculably- 
 stronger, in a military point of view, by such roads; and it can 
 scarcely be doubted that one million expended in this manner 
 confers more real strength than ten millions in fortifications. 
 Troops from the military stations and the interior, and munitions 
 and cannon from the depots, are promptly transported to the 
 points assailed ; while in case of a war where the Canadas were 
 to be attacked, our whole military force could be precipitated 
 upon any point of the frontier, before the force for its defence 
 could be concentrated to protect it. 
 
 Such expenditures, unlike all others of a military character, 
 are useful in peace as well as in war, and contribute to the 
 wealth of their country more than their cost. 
 
 Those portions of the Union where aid is required for their 
 construction, are poor in capital, though abundantly rich in na 
 tional resources and the elements of wealth. New-England, 
 New- York and New-Jersey, require comparatively little aid. 
 They can construct their own internal improvements from their 
 own means. They are, however, benefited by being brought 
 nearer to their best customers, and by having their supplies 
 brought cheaper to market; and their representatives have 
 generally shown that they understand their true interests, by 
 advocating large and liberal appropriations for internal improve 
 ments at the South and West. The agricultural resources of 
 those sections of the Union would be then developed to the 
 best advantage, and our growth, great as it has been during the 
 first half century of our national existence, would be quadru 
 pled under a policy, which gave to our industry and enterprise 
 the advantages and profits of steam power, and the improved 
 mode of intercourse by rail-roads and canals. 
 
 By the resumption of this policy on the part of Congress, all 
 would be done that is required to complete a plan for redeeming 
 the honour of the country; and that without fastening upon the 
 general government a debt so great as to appal the public. 
 The western states would feel that they were not mere "hewers 
 of wood" for the rest of the Union. 
 
255 
 
 The fostering hand of the national government would be felt 
 in the benefits diffused through the fertile territory watered by 
 the father of rivers ; and the hardy yeomanry, that are now 
 engaged in rearing up the mighty states which stretch along its 
 banks, would yearn with even warmer patriotic sentiments 
 than now fill their hearts, towards that Union to which they 
 owe their existence, and which came forward with its great 
 resources to save them from the consequences of youthful pro 
 digality, and to redeem their honour from the reproach of the 
 world. Convince them that we are united in fact as well as 
 in name ; that we all belong to one country; that this great 
 confederacy has not lost its identity or its character in advan 
 cing beyond the Alleghanies ; but that it responds in everything 
 touching the interests and honour of the states, to the glorious 
 motto emblazoned on its banner, " E Pluribus Unum." Such a 
 policy would impart new life to the country. 
 
 Instead of a Union of insolvent states, with exhausted trea 
 suries, decayed credit, alienated feelings and distracted councils, 
 whose resources are dried up, and whose energies are paralyzed 
 by the blighting effects of a cold and selfish policy on the part 
 of those entrusted with the direction of national affairs ; an 
 example would be afforded to the world of the advantage of 
 republican institutions administered for the general welfare, 
 applying their resources, not in senseless pageants, nor expen 
 sive military establishments, but in promoting the internal im 
 provement of this fertile country, developing its powers, and 
 extending its sway over the yet unexplored continent sowing 
 it broad-cast with flourishing villages and populous cities, and 
 enabling this great confederacy to fulfil its high destiny. 
 
LECTURE ON COAL, 
 
 BEFORE THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 
 
 WHEN we look at the uses to which fire is applied ; when 
 we consider how much it contributes to the comfort of man, 
 either directly by affording warmth or in preparing his food, 
 or indirectly in the scientific or manufacturing arts ; when we 
 reflect that without this important agent, most of the mechani 
 cal arts would be useless ; that steam could not be generated ; 
 that tin, lead, copper and iron and, indeed, nearly all the 
 metals would remain in the shape of useless ores, we cannot 
 but acknowledge that to this ethereal element, civilized society 
 is indebted for the greatest portion of its superiority over savage 
 life. 
 
 So important is its agency upon our destiny, that, in some 
 countries, it has been worshipped as a deity, and in the Grecian 
 mythology its introduction among men was attributed to the 
 daring theft of Prometheus ; and so much did the sire of gods 
 resent of the conferring this vast power upon man, that the 
 punishment of its author was destined to be eternal, and terrible, 
 in sublime horror, above all the retributive punishments of 
 paganism. In the early stages of society the readiest means of 
 obtaining fuel were furnished from the forest. Wood is not 
 only excellent as fuel, but it is easy of access, and was, of course, 
 first resorted to. As society advanced, wood became scarce, 
 and it was wanted for so many purposes, that it was a desirable 
 object to provide some other substances to be used as fuel. 
 
 Even in the United States, boundless as the forest seems, 
 there is a deficiency of wood in certain portions of the country. 
 
258 
 
 In the old states men are beginning to estimate trees rather as 
 timber than fuel ; and the time is rapidly passing away, in all 
 parts of the Union, when it is deemed that the best mode of dis 
 posing of the noble trees that grace the American woods is to 
 turn them into ashes. On the sea-coast, that time has long since 
 passed, and for many years the community has been anxiously 
 seeking some substitute for the rapidly diminishing forest. 
 
 Such is, in fact, the natural progress of society. A dense 
 population, except in tropical climates, cannot be supplied with 
 fuel from the annual growth of the soil ; and the mode in which 
 a substance, containing in a concentrated form the means of 
 producing fire, is stored away in the earth for the use of man in 
 the advanced stages of society, affords a striking proof of the 
 wisdom and beneficence of that Power which created this 
 planet and its inhabitants. 
 
 Although coal is now universally used in England, it is only 
 about two centuries since it came into general use, and it was 
 not known at the time of the conquest. In the borough laws 
 promulgated in 1140, privileges are granted to those who sup 
 ply towns with fuel, i. e. wood, turf, and peat. No allusion is 
 made to coal ; and it is not until nearly a century afterwards, 
 or about six hundred years ago, that any mention is made of 
 coal as a fuel. Pius II., who visited England in the fifteenth 
 century, speaks of it as given for fuel to the poor beggars by 
 the monks. 
 
 In China it was, however, known much earlier ; and Marco 
 Paulo, who wrote in the thirteenth century, speaks of it as then 
 used in the province of Cathay, for fuel. The descriptions, both 
 of Pope Pius and Marco Paulo, obviously show that its use for 
 such purposes was a matter of wonder to them, and prove that 
 it was not known to the nations of the European continent. 
 
 At the end of the sixteenth century, in the reign of James the 
 First, of England, its use in making iron was not known in 
 Scotland. It may, therefore, be regarded as a modern dis 
 covery ; and to its general application to the mechanical and 
 manufacturing arts, may be fairly attributed their great advance 
 ment within the two last centuries. The present importance 
 
259 
 
 of the coal business in Great Britain may be estimated by the 
 number of persons employed in it, amounting to 150,000, and 
 furnishing 21,000,000 tons of coal, for the annual consumption 
 of the island. 
 
 There are seven kinds of British coal. The first is known 
 as Newcastle or Sunderland coal, being of a fat, bituminous 
 quality, melting, when heated, to a mass, and caking, and pro 
 ducing but little ashes. This coal is also found in Scotland. 
 
 The general character of Scotch coal is different. It is of 
 two kinds ; the rock coal, which burns to a good cinder, and 
 produces but little ashes ; and the splent or stone coal, which 
 is slaty, and burns freely, with considerable smoke. It is found 
 in very regular strata, like slate. The fourth kind is cannal or 
 parrot coal, which is very light and inflammable, burning very 
 freely, with light ashes. The fifth kind is culm coal, which is not 
 easily ignited, emits neither smoke nor flame, but burns a long 
 time, with a heat like anthracite or charcoal. It does not cake, 
 nor produce much ashes. The sixth kind is jet, which is like 
 the cannal coal, except that it breaks in the direction of the grain, 
 whereas cannal coal breaks in any direction, and is of uniform 
 texture. Jet is found in detached masses, and not in strata. 
 The last is anthracite. 
 
 Many curious speculations have been made as to the origin 
 and nature of coal, whether mineral or vegetable. The saga 
 city and industry of modern geologists have, however, solved 
 these doubts, and at the same time have thrown much light upon 
 the construction of the earth, and its general adaptation to the 
 present uses of man. From the examination of fossil remains 
 and of the strata in which they are found, conclusions approach 
 ing to demonstration have been drawn, both as to the natural 
 history of the globe and the modifications or revolutions which 
 its surface has undergone. In penetrating the earth in low lands 
 or intervales to a great depth, we come to horizontal strata, com 
 posed of various substances, and abounding with marine pro 
 ductions. Every portion of the earth, every continent, every 
 large island, exhibits this phenomenon. 
 
 We are consequently brought to the conclusion, that the sea 
 
260 
 
 has at some period covered the earth, and that it must have 
 remained there for a long time in a tranquil state, in order to 
 account for the formation of deposits so extensive and so solid. 
 
 What was the previous state of the universe at that sublimely 
 mysterious period, when, in the language of inspiration, " the 
 earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the 
 face of the deep," must be left to conjecture. 
 
 It has been supposed that in the first stages of creation the 
 material universe was in a gaseous, watery state, and that when 
 the principle of gravitation was by Omnipotent Power imparted 
 to matter, or, as expressed in Scripture, "the spirit of God 
 moved upon the face of the waters," the parts began to cohere 
 and arrange themselves in an order somewhat resembling that 
 which now exists; the more dense or heavier particles falling 
 to the centre in strata ; then the water, and finally the atmos 
 phere, gradually growing more rarified, until it became difficult 
 to draw the line between the outer regions of atmospheric air 
 and pure ether. In the first moments of existence, the struggle 
 between the rays of the sun and the dense vapors still floating 
 in the atmosphere, must have seemed doubtful ; and the first 
 stage of creation might well refer to that process which divided 
 the light from the darkness, while the second would as naturally 
 relate to the gradual precipitation of the waters from the at 
 mosphere, or "the division of the waters which were under the 
 firmament, from the waters which were above the firmament." 
 
 Then commenced the precipitation of those extensive hori 
 zontal strata, from which the opinion is derived that the waters 
 at one period covered the earth. 
 
 Above these strata are to be found the inclined or vertical 
 strata, which form the ridges of the secondary mountains. 
 These strata, however, do not rest on the horizontal strata, but 
 come up from beneath, as if they had broken through by some 
 mighty convulsion, elevating their heads above the deep to form 
 the dry land, while the receding waters were gathered together 
 in the seas which contained them. 
 
 From the position of these inclined strata, it is evident that 
 the earth has been subjected to one or more internal convul- 
 
261 
 
 sionsof a volcanic character, which have produced these seeming 
 irregularities, and elevated these strata so as to bring them 
 within reach, to be made serviceable to the uses of the in 
 telligent beings that were to inhabit its surface. It is also 
 equally evident, from the absence of all remains of organized 
 matter in these strata, that those convulsions occurred before 
 the creation of animate nature. Indeed, the heat of the globe 
 during these convulsive throes, of which there is abundant evi 
 dence, would of itself have prevented the existence of organized 
 life. 
 
 From the abundance of the remains of marine animals found 
 in the strata through which the inclined strata have been forced, 
 we may fairly infer that the first productions of creative wisdom 
 were the inhabitants of the sea and the aquatic plants. 
 
 During the early stages of their existence, they were exposed 
 to volcanic eruptions, which, by the sudden imparting of heat 
 to the water, or by noxious gases or bituminous mud, must have 
 destroyed myriads of the inhabitants of the sea, and thus have 
 contributed to the rapid formation of the strata where their 
 remains are now found, attended with the clearest evidence of 
 the manner of their destruction. No small portion of the 
 present surface of the earth is formed from the remains of the 
 population of the ancient seas, which are heaped up into stu 
 pendous monuments of the work of mortality during the first 
 stages of creation. 
 
 The vegetation of this period was as simple as the contem 
 poraneous classes of animals. The latter, except the fishes, 
 were without vertebrae, and the plants were of the simplest 
 character, and generally of the cryptogamous order. The 
 fossils of the carboniferous period indicate the existence of ferns, 
 grasses, plants similar to horse tails, and vascular vegetables 
 of a gigantic character, and proving their developement in a 
 climate of much higher temperature than now prevails even in 
 the tropics, and in an atmosphere surcharged with carbonic 
 acid gas. Their growth would be rapid under such circum 
 stances beyond any idea which can now be formed of vegeta 
 tion ; and the absorption of carbon by the plants from the air. 
 
262 
 
 would be a process essential to prepare it for the respiration of 
 mammiferous animals. 
 
 It would be difficult for one so superficially acquainted with 
 geology to describe accurately the different periods when these 
 various classes of animals and vegetables occupied the earth. 
 
 It is sufficient to know that marine productions preceded 
 those of the land ; and the antiquity of the formations in which 
 vegetables of the first periods of creation are found, prove that 
 on the land life began in the vegetable kingdom. Above these, 
 and sometimes mingled with them, are found the fossil remains 
 of birds and quadrupeds. 
 
 In the transition series are found those strata which are de 
 signated as the carboniferous order, or great coal-formation. 
 The coal strata are formed of carbon, obviously produced from 
 the remains of plants of antedeluvian growth. They often con 
 sist of thin layers of vegetable remains, distinctly to be traced 
 by the eye. In some mines, by the fall of the coal roof, a dis 
 play is made of vegetable forms impressed upon the stone, 
 some of species now extinct, and all bearing marks of the grace 
 and beauty which characterize the works of nature. 
 
 A spectator of one of the Bohemian mines, describes them as 
 if he had been transported by enchantment into the forests of 
 another world. He beholds (as he declares) trees of forms and 
 characters now unknown upon the surface of the earth, present 
 ed to his senses almost in the beauty and vigor of their prime 
 val life ; their scaly stems and bending branches, with their 
 delicate apparatus of foliage, are all spread forth before him, 
 little impaired by the lapse of countless ages, and bearing faith 
 ful records of extinct systems of vegetation which began and 
 terminated in times of which these relics are the infallible 
 historians. 
 
 The coal strata alternate with indurated clay, sandstone, 
 limestone, and strata of rich argillaceous iron ore, or iron stones. 
 The limestone beds which form the foundation, are full of the 
 remains of marine animals, while the fresh-water shells in the 
 upper regions of the series, show that the more recent strata 
 were deposited from fresh or brackish water. 
 
263 
 
 It is also ascertained, that one general principle prevailed 
 throughout the successive periods of the secondary and tertiary 
 formation, ever operating to maintain upon the earth the great 
 est amount of life consistent with its capacity to supply nutri 
 ment. 
 
 The connection between the vegetable and the insect tribes 
 is so constant and immediate, that we may infer that so great 
 a mass of plants as that preserved in coal strata must have been 
 productive of countless swarms of insects ; and the provision 
 made for restraining the classes consuming herbs within due 
 bounds, through the agency of carnivorous classes, would lead 
 us to expect that during this period the latter classes would be 
 found of extraordinary power and rapacity. This expectation 
 is realized in the fossil remains of the great carnivorous class 
 of spiders and scorpions which is found in the coal formation ; 
 fully establishing their existence at that early period, and that 
 the vegetation provided for the support of the insect tribes they 
 made their prey, must have been abundant beyond any idea 
 now entertained of the rapidity of vegetable growth. 
 
 The vegetable remains found in the coal fields appear to have 
 been deposited in the vicinity of tracts of dry land containing 
 fresh- water lakes and mountains, and to belong to species 
 found in climates of high temperature. The strata, although 
 in a great degree horizontal, are often arranged in basins, which 
 appear to have been gradually filled up by carbonaceous de 
 posits brought by successive tides or floods of water. 
 
 The anthracite, in general, is so completely mineralized, as to 
 present no traces of vegetable origin ; but in some bituminous 
 strata there are found layers of vegetables converted into true 
 mineral coal, preserving, when separated, perfect impressions 
 of leaves and other parts of plants, and leaving no doubt that 
 all coal is derived from the same source. 
 
 It remains for us to inquire how this mass of vegetable mat 
 ter came to be deposited in strata within the reach of man, to 
 be preserved as it were for his use and comfort, after the sur 
 face should be stripped by the increased demand of the wood 
 which serves for fuel in the early stages of society. 
 
264 
 
 In hazarding a conjecture concerning a process so enveloped 
 in the darkness of antiquity occurring in a period whose histo 
 ry is preserved only in fossil remains, it would be presumptuous 
 to dogmatize. 
 
 It may be permitted, however, to remark, that so large a 
 mass of vegetable remains could scarcely be preserved, except 
 by some process involving their contemporaneous destruction. 
 The successive deposits of plants of periodical growth would 
 have been attended with decay and decomposition, which 
 would have unfitted them for the purposes to which they are 
 now applied. Nor can it be supposed that one annual growth 
 of plants upon the surface would suffice to supply a mass equal 
 to the strata of coal beneath. 
 
 We must, therefore, infer that the productions of a much 
 larger superficies, than the extent of the coal field, have been 
 brought together by some agent, and that the deposit has then ta 
 ken place. From the position of the vegetable remains and their 
 perfect preservation, we may fairly conclude that they have 
 been collected through the agency of water; and it is not un 
 reasonable to infer, that the same fluid that held them in a state 
 of suspension, acted as a current in tearing them from the sur 
 face of the globe. That such a current has at some former 
 period swept over the earth with stupendous force, we have 
 too many proofs to permit us to doubt. It is equally clear that 
 this current has flowed from east to west, excavating the val 
 leys which run through the chains of lofty mountains scooping 
 out the deep gulfs and bays, and dividing the islands from the 
 adjacent continents ; that it has ploughed up the channels of the 
 Red Sea and Mediterranean in its mighty effort to find a pas 
 sage between Africa and Asia, while the great indentation 
 formed by the Gulf of Mexico attests the action of the same 
 current in its endeavour to divide South from North America. 
 Other proofs might be accumulated as to the existence and 
 course of this current, but my limits compel me to make a sug 
 gestion as to its cause. 
 
 It will be readily conceded, that upon the approach of any 
 large body to the earth, a strong influence would be exerted 
 
265 
 
 upon the fluid parts of this planet by the attractive power of 
 the approximating body. 
 
 In the case of the tides, that influence is now daily manifested 
 by the heaping up of the waters on that side of the earth next 
 to the moon, and a similar result is produced at the antipodes. 
 When the sun and moon are on the same side of the earth, the 
 effect is increased, and when they are in opposition, it is di 
 minished. A nearer approach of a smaller heavenly body 
 would produce a greater eftect, and this influence would be 
 augmented in proportion to the diminution of the distance. By 
 the near approach of one of these bodies, as of a comet, 
 the water would be heaped up on that side, by the force of 
 attraction, to the height of several thousand feet ; and being 
 held there by that power, the earth, by revolving on her axis, 
 would pass its surface through this heap of water, and thus 
 create a current moving from east to west of nearly a thousand 
 miles an hour. Such a current, as we may readily imagine, 
 would strip the surface, not only of the plants, but would plough 
 up the soil itself, mixing the whole in chaotic confusion. 
 
 A current like this is a sufficiently powerful agent to have 
 produced most of the extraordinary changes upon the face of 
 the earth, which have baffled the skill of many geological ob 
 servers. We need no longer wonder that rocks of gigantic 
 size are found transported to great distance from their primitive 
 seats ; we need not wonder that the two great continents are 
 nearly severed by the force of the diluvian tides ; we need not 
 perplex our imaginations to find out a cause for the appearance 
 of the southeastern shores of the two great continents, which 
 look as if the current, as it subsided, had worn away the solid 
 shores almost to points. 
 
 Skepticism can here find not only evidence of a deluge, but 
 a cause powerful enough to produce one. With these proofs 
 of the existence, in former days, of mighty diluvian currents 
 sweeping over the earth, from east to west ; with the tradition 
 of a great deluge recorded in sacred writ ; it is not a little re 
 markable that circumstances to which I am about to allude 
 strongly tend to show, that the most extraordinary comet that 
 
 Hh 
 
266 
 
 has appeared in the days of modern astronomy, must have been, 
 about the time ordinarily assigned for the Mosaic deluge, within 
 the limits of our solar system. I refer to the comet of 1680, a lu 
 minary of remarkable size, with a train extending from the 
 zenith to the horizon, and illuminating the whole heavens with 
 its light, and which at the time of its appearance perplexed all 
 Europe with supernatural fears. 
 
 The orbit of this comet was calculated by Halley, and the 
 time of its periodical return was found to be from 575 to 576 
 years. Modern history has verified the accuracy of this calcu 
 lation, by recording the appearances of this comet in former 
 times, i. e. in 1106, in 531, and again forty-four years before 
 Christ, at the time of the death of Caesar. 
 
 An anterior appearance of a remarkable comet is recorded 
 in the Sibylline books, as occurring in the year 618, or 574 
 years before the one above mentioned. Here authentic history 
 is silent ; but in the year 1 193, or shortly after the siege of Troy, 
 Grecian mythology informs us, that one of the Pleiades, unable 
 to witness the misfortunes of that city, abandoned the zodiac, 
 and fled to conceal herself at the pole, with disheveled hair; 
 and that, at a fitting period, she would return to affright man 
 kind. This fable plainly alludes to a remarkable comet, and 
 its appearance at that era being the ascertained time for the 
 return of the comet of Halley, justifies us in concluding that it 
 refers to that comet. Another fable of Arabic origin indicates 
 a still earlier appearance of this wandering star. According 
 to their historians, the star Canope or Sokiel had espoused the 
 constellation Orion, whom the Arabians designate as a female. 
 By some misadventure, Canope wounded his wife ; and, over 
 come with grief, he abandoned his place in the zodiac, and 
 traversing the heavenly field, hid himself near the southern pole. 
 
 This fable is represented as occurring in 1766 before the 
 Christian era, or 574 years before the disappearance of the 
 lost Pleiad ; and the next anterior periodical return of this ex 
 traordinary comet would carry it back to the era ordinarily 
 assigned for the Mosaic deluge. It may certainly be, that these 
 two events have no connection with each other. The chro- 
 
267 
 
 nology of the deluge is not very correctly ascertained, nor is 
 the periodical return of this comet to be regarded as fixed 
 within one or more years. Stars with such eccentric orbits, 
 and traversing such immense regions of space, are liable to be 
 affected in their course by the attraction of the planets whose 
 orbits they pass, and by other influence beyond the limits of our 
 solar system. 
 
 Still, with all these allowances, the coincidence is remarkable, 
 and the results, which must have been caused by such an ap 
 proximation, and of which the evidences are to be found in 
 every coal bed, in all our valleys, in the deep gulfs and bays, 
 and in the shape of the continents, afford some reason to con 
 clude that this coincidence did occur, and that it was intended 
 to accomplish the great purposes of infinite wisdom. Whether 
 this conjecture as to the cause of the universal deluge be well 
 founded or not, is not, however, so important to my present 
 purpose. Other evidence exists, presenting the strongest in 
 ternal force, that such a deluge did occur, and that it was 
 accompanied with a current of the character here described. 
 
 In subsiding, it would happen that, as the earth passed 
 through the heap of waters, the large basins formed by the 
 great north and south ranges of mountains would be filled with 
 water surcharged with mineral and vegetable deposits, which 
 would fall to the bottom of these basins, as the waters flowed 
 off through the valleys and lower declivities of the mountain 
 ridges. Time would be afforded after the great diluvial tide 
 had passed, before the revolution of the earth again filled the 
 basin, for a large quantity of the water to run off, and for 
 masses of matter, held in suspension, to be deposited ; the 
 heavier particles falling first, and the vegetable remains, satu 
 rated with mineral and bituminous substances, next. Another 
 and another tide following, another and another series of de 
 posits would be made, until the cause of the high diluvial tides, 
 passing beyond the influence of attraction, the agitation of the 
 ocean would cease, and the deposits w r ould begin to assume 
 consistency and solidity, and to form part of the outer strata of 
 the earth. 
 
268 
 
 The important uses of coal, in administering to the wants of 
 society, give to us all a direct interest in the geological events 
 of those early stages of creation. The most ancient period to 
 which its origin can be traced, was among the swamps and 
 marshes of the primeval earth, where it existed in the form of 
 stately ferns and gigantic plants of the cryptogamous class. We 
 next find it torn from the surface of the mighty diluvian current 
 that swept over the earth, mingling its vegetable productions 
 in chaotic disorder, with all the looser portions of its surface. 
 
 Upon the subsiding of the flood, these plants sunk, saturated, 
 to the bottom of their present basins; and. after a long course 
 of ages and chemical changes, they became converted into en 
 during beds of coal, which, in these latter days, have proved 
 the sources of heat, and light, and wealth to the human race. 
 It converts the barren stone into a metal that gives to man the 
 mastery over all the elements which form the materials of his 
 mechanical industry. It. is in the mill, and in the workshop. 
 It warms his domestic hearth, and prepares his food. It spins, 
 it weaves, it ploughs, it prints, it carries, it draws, it lifts, it for 
 ges. In the form of gas, it furnishes his apartments with bril 
 liant light, and gives a respite to the persecuted leviathan of the 
 deep. It takes the road ; and the iron horse, with centuple 
 force, dashes by with a train of enormous weight, and with a 
 speed which outstrips the fleetest race-horse. It appears upon 
 the water; sails are furled, the boatman reposes on his oars, and 
 the rivers and lakes are made to convey passengers and their 
 goods with certainty and speed. The current of the Mississippi 
 is no longer an obstacle to the ascending trade of that fertile 
 valley. The ocean is no more faithless and uncertain. It has 
 been bridged by steam, and the force of the waves and the 
 power of the storm, terrible as they have been throughout time 
 to those who go down in ships to the great deep, are shorn of 
 their terrors, and deprived of their destroying energy, by the 
 power created by this useful material. 
 
 Among the most remarkable coal fields, or basins, we may 
 class that formed between the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains, 
 and drained by the Mississippi ; and it would be difficult to 
 
269 
 
 imagine any large tract where the shape of the country is 
 better calculated for the preservation of large diluvial deposits, 
 of the carboniferous order, than the great valley lying west of 
 the Alleghany Mountains. 
 
 From the superficial examination which has been bestowed 
 upon this coal field, and the numerous specimens of coal found 
 in all directions, we may safely conclude that there is stored up, 
 in that region, a greater mass of fuel, in the concentrated form 
 of coal, than is to be found in all Europe ; probably greater 
 than is afforded in all other parts of the ancient world. 
 
 In Great Britain, (distinguished as that island has been for 
 mineral riches, and great as have been the effects resulting from 
 their developement,) inconsiderable, indeed, are the carboni 
 ferous deposits, when compared with those which break 
 through the eastern face of the Alleghanies,on the Susquehanna, 
 and spread themselves in one broad field of mineral wealth 
 through the immense valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi. 
 
 The coal fields are found in almost every part of this vast 
 tract of country. They exist in Alabama. In Virginia they 
 have been worked for many years. In Cumberland, on the 
 Potomac, extensive mines of bituminous coal are found near 
 the Chesapeake canal, which have lately commanded great 
 attention. At Blosburgh, in Tioga county, a large mine is now 
 worked, from which the Erie Canal boats are receiving 200 
 tons per day. At Tonawanda, on the east side of the same 
 mountain, there are coal strata, which I have examined, five 
 feet thick, and which are worked for the use of the vicinity. 
 Other mines are found in Jefferson and Clearfield counties, near 
 Olean, which seem to be provided for the supply of the western 
 part of this state. It is, however, on the western side of the 
 Alleghany range, that the great coal field is to be found. There 
 it extends in broad and almost uninterrupted strata, as if the 
 great mass of vegetable remains of the antediluvian world had 
 been swept before the mighty current, until they found a shelter 
 in the eddies formed by the projecting ridge of the Alleghanies, 
 and were there stored up for the use of the enterprising people 
 now occupying this highly favoured country. 
 
270 
 
 The field of bituminous coal is not even now fully explored. 
 It is, however, found almost everywhere, and generally easy of 
 access ; often in mountains, and so situated that the mines can 
 be drained without machinery into the natural water-courses of 
 the country. 
 
 It has not yet been discovered in New- York, nor in New- 
 England ; but the examinations there have not been sufficiently 
 exact to warrant the conclusion that those states are without 
 coal deposits ; and the appearance of the carboniferous strata 
 in Nova Scotia, where coal of excellent quality is obtained from 
 the Sidney and Pictou mines, affords strong evidence that the 
 causes which produced the great Alleghany coal field operated 
 over the whole tract of country, from Alabama to Cape 
 Breton. 
 
 In Rhode Island and in Massachusetts, near Worcester and 
 Taunton, anthracite coal is found ; and although this species of 
 coal is more completely mineralized, it is obviously produced 
 by similar causes. The great anthracite coal beds of Pennsyl 
 vania appear to the east of the great bituminous coal field, and 
 afford some ground to believe that the great coal strata on the 
 eastern side were first formed, and being less protected from 
 the current, became more completely mineralized. Hitherto 
 the anthracite coal, being of more easy access, has come into 
 more general use; and the rapid increase of that trade is a 
 striking proof of the growing importance of this branch of 
 national industry. 
 
 In 1820, this article was first made known; and 3G5 tons 
 were brought to market. In 1826, the consumption had in 
 creased to 48,000 tons; and last year it was augmented to 
 845,000 tons. 
 
 The bituminous coal business has scarcely yet commenced. 
 In Virginia, it is true that bituminous mines were long since 
 opened ; but the trade has been carried on in an easy, careless, 
 unenterprising manner, so characteristic of that venerable com 
 monwealth, that we can scarcely wonder that it has grown 
 into the currency of a proverb, that " Old Virginny never tires." 
 The sensation of fatigue is rather produced in the observer of 
 her movements. 
 
271 
 
 The amount of bituminous coal consumed in the west, at 
 Pittsburgh and other places, is great ; but the source of supply 
 is so near at hand, that it can scarcely be yet enumerated among 
 the branches of internal trade. 
 
 In this state the business has been lately commenced. A 
 rail-road forty miles in length was recently completed, connect 
 ing the Chemung Canal at Corning with the Blosburg mines in 
 Pennsylvania. When I was there, in August last, the rail-road 
 was just put in operation; the wharf, where ihe coal was trans 
 ferred from the cars to the canal boats, was not finished ; the 
 streets of a future city were still crowded with stumps and the 
 trees of the forest; the work, however, was going on with vigour; 
 stores and dwelling-houses were building ; a church and school- 
 house, and an iron foundry, were completed. The locomotives, 
 with their trains of coal cars, were arriving twice a day, bring 
 ing 100 tons of coal to be discharged into the canal boats, and 
 the men were then employed in landing another locomotive, in 
 order to increase the force on the road.* 
 
 In this enterprise might be plainly traced the commencement 
 of a new internal trade of great importance. On the north 
 western base of the Alleghany bordering on the Erie rail-road, 
 and approaching near to the termination of the Genesee valley, 
 the Chemung and Chenango Canals, are bituminous coal mines, 
 
 * At Blosburg, there are several coal companies, all of whom are entitled to use 
 the road ; each coal company furnishing its own cars, brake-men, &c., and the rail 
 road company furnishing the road and motive power. The Arbon Coal Company 
 has made four drifts into the mountain, each of sufficient capacity to yield 250 tons 
 daily. It has also 100 coal cars, each carrying 3 tons. Already 230 tons have 
 been delivered in one day, and the force employed there is constantly increasing. 
 The weight of the Blosburg coal is as follows : 
 
 Density. Weight per cubic yard. 
 Tons. Ibs. 
 
 Johnson Run, 1493 .... 1.. 0280 
 
 BearCreek, 1000 .... 1 .. 0122 
 
 New Hope Run, 1429 .... 1.. 0173 
 
 CoolRun, 1371 .... 1 .. 0073 
 
 It contains 75.4 per cent, carbon, 
 16.4 " bitumen, 
 8.2 " ashes and earthy matter. 
 
272 
 
 which are of indescribable importance to this state. In those 
 mines, the coal strata alternate with limestone, fire clay, and 
 iron stone, in layers. Here are destined to be great iron works, 
 upon which we must mainly rely for our supply of that great 
 necessary of life. 
 
 The demand for iron is daily increasing, and that so rapidly, 
 as to make it difficult to say from what quarter the demand can 
 be supplied. 
 
 In 1740, the amount of iron made in England and Wales 
 was but 17,000 tons. In 1796, it had increased to 125,000 
 tons ; and when, in 1820, it had increased to 400,000, and in 
 1830 to 700,000 tons, some doubt began to be expressed 
 whether the sources of this enormous supply might not be ex 
 hausted. What must be the apprehension of these doubters 
 when they find the annual consumption more than doubled, it 
 having last year come up to the enormous amount of 1,512,000 
 tons ! In France, it amounted to 600,000 tons, and the total 
 amount made in Europe was 3,000,000 tons. In the United 
 States, the amount now made annually is about 250,000 tons ; 
 and it is fast increasing. 
 
 It is in reference to iron that the consideration of this topic 
 becomes extremely interesting in a national point of view. 
 The yearly importation of iron into the United States, in bars 
 or pigs, or in massive articles, amounts to near 85,000,000, and 
 the manufactured articles on that material, to a much larger 
 sum. Nearly 8400,000 are required for our rail-roads, and the 
 demand from that quarter must increase. But our attention is 
 scarcely directed to that subject. We have been too much 
 occupied with commerce and agriculture. We have just begun 
 to inquire into our mineral wealth ; and already a process has 
 been discovered, by which anthracite coal is used in smelting 
 iron, and its cost of production is reduced 40 percent.; and we 
 are enabled to use pig iron of greater weight as a substitute for 
 bar iron for rail-roads. 
 
 Those acquainted with the subject assert, that in the Cumber 
 land district the facilities for manufacturing iron with bitumi 
 nous coal are so great, that it can be afforded for from 812 to 
 $15 per ton, or much less than the price of iron in Europe. 
 
273 
 
 The bituminous coal in the United States, except the Vir 
 ginia and Ohio, is much heavier than that of Europe. The 
 Blosburg, the Pennsylvania, and the Tennessee coal, all exceed 
 in weight a ton to the cubic yard ; and that in Bedford county 
 (Penn.) exceeds it by 629 Ibs. 
 
 None of the European coals weigh a ton. The anthracite, 
 too, are ail heavier than those of Europe. 
 
 With coal of so excellent a quality, and so abundant in quan 
 tity, a new feature is developed in the character and resources 
 of the United States. Imagination can scarcely grasp the ex 
 tent of power and prosperity to which this republic is destined 
 to advance. 
 
 When we consider how much has been achieved by England, 
 by the action of coal upon iron and steam ; when we reflect 
 that machinery equivalent to the labour of nearly 400,000,000 
 men is now moved in that country by its agency ; that 
 through that labour she maintained her fleets and armies, 
 and was enabled for a quarter of a century to withstand the 
 united energies of revolutionary France, backed by her depend 
 ent continental allies, and directed by the genius of Napoleon, 
 and finally to plant the red cross in triumph upon the walls of 
 Paris, and to dictate the terms of peace to Europe ; when we 
 look at the importance of that little island among civilized pow 
 ers, at the influence she has exerted and is exerting upon the world, 
 and perceive how much of that power is owing to the wealth 
 created by the combined force of coal, iron, and steam, we are 
 amazed at its influence upon the fortunes and destinies of man 
 kind. 
 
 In this country that influence is beginning to exert itself; 
 and we have ill read the signs of the times, if it is not destined 
 to exert a mighty force upon the fortunes of the United States. 
 The internal improvement of the country ; the providing the 
 means of bringing its produce to market, and of intercommu 
 nication between different portions of the Union ; the advance 
 ment of the manufacturing arts ; the developement of its resources, 
 all depend upon the combined influence of these important 
 
 agents; and if we would promote the permanent improvement 
 
 li 
 
274 
 
 of our species, no better mode can be devised than to encourage, 
 by all proper means, the working of our coal and iron mines. 
 Under a judicious and economical system, we may then see 
 the great channels of intercommunication between the states 
 furnished with the improved modes of intercourse ; the distant 
 parts of the Union really made one country, by bringing them 
 within a few days travel ; the arts and sciences of the old 
 world transported to the new; our machinery increased and 
 perfected, until its power is equivalent to that of England ; and 
 the country rich and prosperous, and, under the guidance of 
 patriotism and intelligence, moving onward in that career of 
 glory and greatness, which is marked out as it were by the finger 
 of Divine Providence. 
 
U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 JE 
 
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