neutrality, and, at an early period, arrested the intrigues of France, and the passions of his countrymen, on the very edge of the precipice of war and revolution.

This act of firmness, at the hazard of his reputation and peace, entitles him to the name of the first of patriots. Time was gained for the citizens to recover their virtue and good sense, and they soon recovered them. The crisis was passed, and America was saved.

It is impossible to advert to the name of Washington, so dear to every lover of freedom, without paying his memory the highest tribute of veneration. History records not a nobler example of self-renunciation, and more unwearied devotedness to his country. Our admiration for the man does not require us to coincide in all the abstract notions of the theory of government entertained by this first and greatest President of the United States. His views and measures, in the exercise of the powers of government, were in perfect accordance with those of Fisher Ames, and in direct opposition to those entertained by many here, who are too ready to avail themselves of the authority of his name.

Far be it from me, to charge men with intentional dishonesty, in mistaking the republican for the democrat, and in assuming Washington to have held such principles, as they think he ought to have held, but which are in positive variance with those he did hold. Such men care nothing for liberty but its name, "which is as much the end as the instrument of party, and equally fills up the measure of their comprehension and desires." For American authorities to support their cause, they must refer to later and more degenerate days. The name of Washington belongs not to the disciples of agitation. Could the lips of a patriotic king, or the pen of an upright statesman, who felt the people were much less interested in the contentions of party, than in the maintenance of order and good government, denounce in more

decided terms the system of factious agitation, than the following extract from Columbia's Legacy?

"Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you speedily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be, to effect in the forms of the constitution, alterations, which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments, as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard, by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigour as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty, is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.”

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CHAPTER VI.

THE ILLUMINISTS.

REFORMERS make nothing of old establishments, of interests that have taken root for ages, and of prejudices, habits, and relations, rather less ancient and rather more stubborn than they. It is fair and candid to make every presumption in favour of their intentions, that may not be discredited by their conduct. It is, however, an effort of candour; but we must make it, to allow that they have been carried away by systems, and the everlasting zeal to generalize, instead of proceeding, like men of practical sense, on the low but sure foundation of matter of fact. They often judge of a law, as they would of a picture, by the rules of taste: they can decide in such a case only as the mob do, by acclamation. What ought to be the result of experience, that a blockhead could both feel and express, is comprehended in the province of sentiment; and for the curse and confusion of a state, the plodding business of politics becomes one of the fine arts. The statesman is bewildered with his own peculiar fanaticism; he sees the stars near, but loses sight of the earth-he sails in his balloon into clouds and thick vapours, above his business and his duties, and if he sometimes catches a glimpse of the wide world, it seems flattened to a plain, and shrunk in all its proportions; therefore he strains his optics to look beyond its circumference, and contemplates invisibility till he thinks nothing else is real. New worlds of

metaphysics issue from his teeming brain, and whirl in orbits more elliptic than the comets. Man rises from the mire into which aristocracy has trodden him, shakes off the sleep of ignorance and the fetters of the law, a gorgeous new being, invested with perfectibility, a saint in purity, a giant in intellect, and goes to inhabit these worlds. Condorcet, and Roland, and men like them, will be there, and Paine, and Duane, and Marat, and Burroughs. There virtue will celebrate her triumphs; there patriotism will be inebriated with the ecstacy of her fellowships.

I know as little of the political illuminists as of the sect of the Swedenborgians; but to me it has ever appeared, that the former are a new sect of fanatics. They manifest a strange heat in the heart, but no light in the brain, unless it be a feeble light, whose rays are gathered in the lens of philosophy, to kindle every thing in the state, that is combustible, into a blaze. A statesman of this sect will poise himself in his chair, like an alchymist in his laboratory, pale with study, his fingers sooty with experiments, eager to make fuel of every thing that is precious, and sanguinely expecting that he shall extract every thing precious from the cinders and dross that must be thrown away.

In prosperous times, when men feel the greatest ardour in their pursuits of gain, they manifest the most callous apathy to politics. Those who possess but to manage the

nothing, and have nothing to do intrigues of elections, will prevail against five times their number of men of business. Each description is actuated by strong passions, moving in different, but not opposite directions. When, however, some of the

great interests of society are invaded, those passions change their direction and are quickened in it. They are then capable of defending themselves with all the vivacity of the spirit of gain and of enterprise, with all the energies of vengeance and despair. These, it must be confessed, are revolutionary resources, for the defence of property and right, which cannot, and ought not, to be called forth on ordinary occasions. The classes in question will be long in danger, before they will be in fear; and, if their adversary forbears to push the attack in so rude a manner as to make that fear overpower all other emotions, he may proceed, unsuspected and unopposed. They will be as much engrossed with their business, as the political projectors with their plans of reforming, till they destroy it.

Those who possess property, who enjoy rights, and who reverence the laws, as the guardians of both, naturally think it important, and what is better, feel the necessity of supporting the controlling and restraining power of the state: in other words, their interests and wishes are on the side of justice, because justice will secure to every man his own. On the other hand, those who do not know what right is, or if they do, despise it; who have no interest in justice, because they have little for it to secure, and that little, perhaps, its impartial severity would transfer to creditors; who see in the mild aspect of our government, a despot's frown, and a dagger in its hand, while it scatters blessings; who consider government as an impediment to liberty, and the stronger the government, the stronger the impediment; that it is patriotism, virtue, heroism, to sur