European nations possess would be a foolish and wicked waste of the energies of our countrymen. It would be to pull on our own heads that load of military expense which makes the European laborer go supperless to bed, and moistens his bread with the sweat of his brow. It will be enough if we enable ourselves to prevent insults from those nations of Europe which are weak on the sea, because circumstances exist which render even the strong ones weak as to us. Providence has placed their richest and most defenceless possessions at our door; has obliged their most precious commerce to pass, as it were, in review before us. To protect this, or to assail, a small part only of their naval force will ever be risked across the Atlantic. The dangers to which the elements expose them here are too well known, and the greater dangers to which they would be exposed at home, were any calamity to involve their whole fleet. They can attack us by detachment only; and it will suffice to make ourselves equal to what they may detach. A small naval force then is sufficient for us, and a small one is necessary. What this should be I will not undertake to say. I will only say, it should be by no means so great as we are able to make it.

Ο

UR INTEREST will be to throw open the doors of commerce, and to knock off all its shackles, giving perfect freedom to all persons for the vent of whatever they may choose to bring into our ports, and asking the same in theirs. Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject as that which has been 2. 240 employed to persuade nations that it is their interest to go to war. Were the money which it has cost to gain, at the close of a long war, a little town, or a little territory, the right to cut wood here, or to catch fish there, expended in improving what they already possess, in

making roads, opening rivers, building ports, improving the arts, and finding employment for their idle poor, it would render them much stronger, much wealthier, and happier. And this I hope will be our wisdom.

D

URING the contest of opinion through which we

have passed, the animation of discussion and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to think and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced ac3. 318. cording to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated men, seeking through blood and slaughter their long lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others; that this should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every differ

ence of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans-we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know indeed that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it is the only one where every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

I

FEAR not that any motives of interest may lead me astray; I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice; but the weakness of human nature, and the limits of my own understanding will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your interests. I shall need, there

3. 383. fore, all the indulgence I have heretofore experienced the want of it will certainly not lessen with the increasing years. I shall need, too, the favor of that being, in whose hands we are, who led our Fathers,

as Israel of old, from their native land, and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence, and our riper years with His wisdom and power; and to whose goodness I ask you to join me in supplications, that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures, that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations.

I

PERCEIVE by your letter you are not unapprised that your services to your country have not made due impression on every mind. That you have enemies, you must not doubt, when you reflect that you have made yourself eminent. If you meant to escape malice you should have confined yourself within the 4. 201. sleepy line of regular duty. When you transgressed this, and enterprised deeds which will hand down your name with honor to future times, you made yourself a mark for envy and malice to shoot at. Of these there is enough, both in and out of office. I was not a little surprised to find one person hostile to you. that you may long continue a fit object for his enmity, and for that of every person of his complexion in the state, which I know can only be by your continuing to do good to your country, and to acquire honor to yourself, is the earnest prayer of Your friend.

In a virtuous government, and more especially in times like these, public offices are what they should be, burthens to those appointed to them, which it would be wrong to decline, though foreseen to bring with them intense labor and great private loss. 4. 297.

་

If pride of character be of worth at any time, it is when it disarms the efforts of malice. 4. 364.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money. 4. 23.

I

HAVE printed and reserved just copies enough (Notes on Virginia) to be able to give one to every young man at the college. It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations.

5. 4.

T

5. 322.

E

HE KNOWN bias of the human mind from motives of interest should lessen the confidence of each party in the justice of their reasoning;

VERY rational citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water.

A naval

force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed, a land force would do both. 5. 386.

W

ERE I to select any passages as giving me particular satisfaction, it would be those wherein you prove to the United States that they will be more virtuous, more free, and more happy, employed in agriculture, than as carriers or manufacturers. It is a truth and a precious one for them, if they could

5. 402. be persuaded of it.

ノ