Perhaps the first suggestion that China was the happy land of international ease. When BEFORE evils have happened, it is the part of wisdom to exhibit their worst aspects. they are known to be inevitable, or have actually occurred, it is no less the office of wisdom to display their palliations or their remedies. It would be cowardly, in despair, to aggravate their weight, or to sink under its pressure. No; bad as our prospects are, they are not hopeless. There is a sure resource for hope in ourselves; the steady good sense of New England will be a shield of defence. Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. The public spirit and opinion of this division of the union constitute a force which the enemies of our constitutions and fundamental interests will labor to corrupt, but will not dare to withstand. For New England is not inhabited by a conquered people. Their opinions will have some in fluence on the policy, if their commerce, navigation, and credit should have no hold on the hearts of their rulers. Even conquerors, unless they were willing to have their fighting work to do over again, would choose to mask, under the most specious disguises, the violation of rights and the contempt of opinions. There is evidence enough, that the party expected to rule is not friendly to the commerce of any of the States, and especially to the fisheries and navigation of the Eastern States. We do not want, they argue, an expensive navy for the sake of these; nor these for the sake of the navy. Navies breed wars, and wars augment navies, and both augment expenses, and this brings forth funding systems, banks, and corrupt influence. These few words contain the system of our new politicians, which it is probable they will be in future, as in times past, complaisant enough to one another to call philosophy. Such illuminism, such visions of bedlam, have visited some famous heads that do not repose within its cells, and condensed their thin essences into schemes of political reform, projects of cheap governments, that are to be rich without revenue, strong without force, venerable with popular prejudice directed by faction against them. Learned fools are of all the greatest as well as the most indocile. Accordingly, in despite of the experience of all the world and of our own, in despite of common sense and the dictates of obvious duty, such men, high in reputation, and expected to be high in office, have insisted that we do not want a single soldier, nor a single armed ship; that credit is an abuse, an evil to be cured only by having none, a cancer that eats, and will kill, unless cut or burnt out with caustics; that if we have any superfluity foreigners will come for it, if they need it, and if they do not it would be a folly and a loss for us to carry it to them. They tell us with emphasis, and seem to expect our vanity will gain them credit for saying, that America ought to renounce the sea and to draw herself closely into her shell; let the mad world trade, negotiate, and fight, while we Americans live happily, like the Chinese, enjoying abundance, independence, and liberty. - This is said by persons clad in English broadcloth and Irish linen, who import their conveniences from England, and their politics from France. It is solemnly pronounced as the only wise policy for a country, where the children. multiply faster than the sheep, and it is, inconsistently enough too, pronounced by those who would have all farmers, no manufacturers. Notions of this stamp of sublimated extravagance have been often in the heads of bookmakers and projectors. Some Frenchman suggested a scheme of like wisdom, to bind kings and princes, not republics, to keep the peace, and be of good behavior; and there are some declaimers who would have the Indians on the frontiers enter into recognizance, and thus get rid of the expense and danger of a standing army of four regiments. But they would have a militia, half a million strong, made expert soldiers by training them, unpaid, till they become equal to veterans. A militia system is right; these reformers, however, never touch truth but to distort it, nor any sound principle but to drive it to extremes; they would therefore make a militia system burdensome, unwieldy, and corrupt; a standing army for faction, distinguished by a strange badge, and arrayed against the govern ment. It is indeed probable that these wild theories have never yet much disturbed the world by addling the brains of any man who had its business to do. Such political sophists, till lately, have been calmly depised, but never trusted with power. Into the hands of such children it has never before been thought prudent to put knives. If, to punish the manifold sins of this nation, God's displeasure dooms it to be delivered over to projectors and philosophists, the first of the sort who ever had the chance to play the statesman, will they have the temerity to undertake, and will they accomplish their plans? . . . Fisher Ames, Works, (Boston, 1854), II. 131-133 passim. 2. The Political Storm Is Over (1801) By SAMUEL ADAMS One of the last utterances of Samuel Adams then in retirement. I. SINCERELY Congratulate our Country on the arrival of the day of Glory which has called you to the first office in the administration of our federal Government. Your warm feeling of friendship must certainly have carried you to a higher tone of expression than my utmost merits will bear. If I have at any time been avoided or frowned upon, your kind ejaculation in the language of the most perfect friend of Man, surpasses every injury. The Storm is now over, and we are in port, and I dare say, the ship will be rigged for her proper service; she must also be well man'd and very carefully officered. No man can be fit to sustain an office who cannot consent to the principles by which he must be governed. With you, I hope, we shall once more see harmony restored; but after so severe and long a storm, it will take a proportionate time to still the raging of the waves. The World has been governed by prejudice and passion, which never can be friendly to truth; and while you nobly resolve to retain the principles of candour and of justice, resulting from a free elective Rep |