degradation, destruction and death. This point is, when suffering forbearance involves a surrender of honour, property, and the power of self-government. How near we have approached to this period, or how fast we are approximating, is not for us to determine. Such considerations ought with confidence, as they may with safety, remain where the constitution has placed them. Congress, with an united people, may still avert the threatened evil. Pacifick wisdom may yet be better than weapons of war. And should it become necessary to cast the die, we may be assured our representatives, participating in all the trials, burthens and sufferings imposed on others, will not incautiously precipitate the throw.

Whence then the causes of jealousy, distrust, altercation and bitter aspersion of some of our citizens? Whence then the ever to be regretted indiscretions, suddenness and individual rashness, that have denounced our national government and wounded our own? Under a general pressure, however necessary, excitements are easily produced. The effects of national measures have fallen, and will fall more severely, on some descriptions of citizens and portions of the community than others. This is unavoidable. Ship owners and the New England states may have been the greatest sufferers. But a necessary inequality, in the effect of measures, furnishes no objection to their justice or their policy. All agree something was necessary to be done. Had other measures been adopted, they probably would but have produced another description of evils, not have diminished the aggregate. It was not to have been expected that the United States could be exempted from disasters, when causes were in operation, which have involved half the world in the greatest. We in some measure know the effects of past arrangements, but can never know what would have been the results of different ones. If our privations have preserved a portion of our property, our peace, and the opportunity of yet selecting between alliances, peace

and war, are we certain the price has been too great? It has been the unenviable and arduous task of our rulers to collect the diversified sentiments of their constituents, on facts, and to assimilate and concentrate them, as far as possible, to an according system, predicated on the prevailing opinion. By what other principle, by what better rule, can society act? If the degree, the kind and the time for action must wait for unanimity, our rights would never be defended and our country would be ruined. By the voice of the majority alone can society exist for a moment. To oppose it, is to oppose a vital movement of the body politick. To triumph over it, is to conquer ourselves and render us a prey to any and every invader. A government of the minority is a government of anarchy and confusion, a dissolution of all principle and of all authority. Who can contemplate such a state of things but with horrour? Who can lend it even his silent countenance? Are not liberty, safety and property, our dearest rights and dearest enjoyments, the creatures of law, upheld by its power and rendered sacred by its energies? If government languishes and fails, will not these blessings languish and perish also? Who does not know, in the range of excited passions, broken loose from legal restraints, property is often fatal to its owner, virtue to its possessor, and family blessings an invitation to the hand of the destroyer? When beholding in the mirrour of past times and distant ages the black and frightful atrocities of furious and ungoverned men, amidst the wrecks of civil establishments, will not thoughtfulness, in the language of our departed patriot, "frown indignantly upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate one portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together its various parts ?" Frown upon every suggestion of a non-execution of the law, resistance or abandonment of the Union? Such suggestions are not less a libel upon the morals and understanding of the great body of the New England

people, than on their patriotism. Their character is not marked with propensities to outrage, disorder and blood. Such a reproach must be repelled. Our citizens may differ on the necessity and wisdom of existing or projected measures; but for support of their government, their rights and their independence, the majority is immense.

Will not the advocates for town meetings, the authors of resolutions, be induced calmly to weigh the spirit and principles of their opposition, and to reflect further on the tendency of their measures? Are they prepared to pull down the splendid edifice erected by the wisdom and valour of their fathers, and to bury themselves under the ruins of liberty? Are not all their privations and sufferings notorious to their rulers, and from necessity yielded to, with parental sympathy and painful sensibility? While a large majority of the people of the Union, of their national representatives, of the state legislatures, of their towns and counties, seriously believe that the existing measures are essential to our safety and the best for the whole, can their opposers wish them to be abandoned, and a surrender of the government into their hands? And will they yield it, in turn, to other towns and sections of the country, that may make a similar claim? Would they wish in these perilous times to see our peace, liberty and social blessings at the feet of a party? Would they wish to break those ties which unite all to the common centre, a deposit for the publick opinion, publick confidence and publick power? Such a secession from the salutary conceptions of our constitutions and the fundamental principles of our government would be more to be deprecated and outweigh in mischief the most exaggerated evils of the embargo.

The cultivated reports that the administration and the southern people are hostile to commerce, and unfriendly to the eastern states, are calculated to produce uneasiness, jealousies and dissentions. The evidence of such facts I have never seen. My con

victions, under some advantages for observation, have been otherwise. I question not the sincerity of the opinion of others. The principles and the publick conduct of our rulers are the fair objects of a manly and publick spirited scrutiny, for the purposes of merited censure or approbation, their continuance or removal from office in the prescribed forms. The proof of their talents, zeal and labours to serve and render their country great and happy, are before the publick. Their discussion with truth and fairness would be salutary and agreeable to the genius and spirit of our government. But misrepresentations, groundless suspicions, violent and indiscriminate abuse, unless checked, 'must end in opposition to the law, a contempt for its authority, and distracted breaches of the publick peace.

If legal animadversions on incendiary and libellous publications would be thought by some, dangerous to the liberty of speech and the press; a strong publick opinion, favourable to government, would be equally efficacious to its authority and to discountenance its opposers.-Shall such aid be withheld? Or must false views, misstatements and groundless alarms, indicative of extreme distrust and danger from the representatives of our own election, the government of our own choice, hurry virtuous and well meaning men into acts pregnant with awful consequences? It is said measures are unnecessary, unconstitutional, oppressive and tyrannical. Is it certain this is correct? Are citizens in the streets, in town meetings, in multitudinous assemblies, citizens pressed with deep personal interests and excited from erroneous conceptions, capable of deciding on great, complicated constitutional questions ? Hence our peril. Hence distraction and confusion in society. Hence encouragement to the enemy. Are such citizens more worthy of confidence than their rulers? Are they better instructed, or do they possess higher means of information? Are our rulers blinded by their interests or impassioned by

their sufferings? They decide against their interests, and their sufferings are in common with their constituents. Are they actuated by prejudice or stimulated by resentments? They have nothing personal. Their insults and injuries have been the insults and injuries of their country. What then is to be done? States, towns and individuals have their favourite projects. The Union have theirs. Thus jarring, are we, with augmented resentments, to rush together in ruinous collisions? Are we with mutual hatreds to rend asunder the bands which have united us? to throw from our vitals the shield which protects them?

A good government is Heaven's richest gift. Past events will shew the worth of ours. Calamities formed and introduced our federal constitution. Its adoption, the desired and long suspended hope of our citizens, was hailed, and truly hailed, as the salvation of our country. Experience has exalted its value, and disclosed more and more its practical excellencies. It is worthy the wisdom and labours of its authors, and merits every sacrifice for its preservation. Our history which preceded its adoption furnishes examples which are fraught with admonitions. Our government was humbled and inefficient. Our union a thread. Our commerce unregulated and unprotected. Our revenue nothing. Our faith perfidy. Our credit bankruptcy; and our privations the want of every thing. Individuals were embarrassed; grievances complained of; our rulers censured; town and county resolutions published; combinations formed; a non-compliance with the laws announced; government opposed; property sold for one third its value; tender laws made; the insolvent imprisoned, and our courts of justice stopped. But government must then be supported and its laws be respected. Troops were detached, armed men patroled our streets, and we saw them with a joy inspired by the idea of protection and security, from the execution of the law and the

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