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same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs; and who, by their joint counsels, arms and efforts, fighting side by side, through a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general liberty and independence.

This country and this people seem to have been made for each other; and it appears as if it were the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous and alien sovereignties.

Similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and denominations of men among us. To all gencral purposes we have uniformly been one people-each individual citizen every where enjoying the same national rights, privileges and protection. As a nation we have made peace and war; as a nation we have vanquished our common enemies; as a nation we have formed alliances, and-made treaties, and entered into various compacts and conventions with foreign states.

A strong sense of the value and blessings of union induced the people, at a very early period, to institute a federal government in order to preserve and perpetuate it. They formed it almost as soon as they had a political existence; nay, at a time when their habitations were in flames, when many of them were bleeding in the field, and when the progress of hostility and desolation left little room for those calm and mature inquiries and reflections, which must ever precede the formation of a wise and wellbalanced government for a free people. It is not to be wondered, that a government instituted in times so inauspicious should, on experiment, be found greatly deficient, and inadequate to the purpose it was intended to answer.

This intelligent people perceived and regretted these defects. Still continuing no less attached to union than enamoured of liberty, they observed the danger, which immediately threatened the former, and more remotely the latter; and, being persuaded that ample security for both could only be found in a national government more wisely framed, they, as with one voice, convened the late conven

tion at Philadelphia, to take that important subject under consideration.

This convention, composed of men who possessed the confidence of the people, and many of whom had become highly distinguished for their patriotism, virtue and wisdom, in times which tried the souls of men, undertook the arduous task. In the mild season of peace, with minds unoccupied by other subjects, they passed many months in cool, uninterrupted and daily consultations. And finally, without having been awed by power, or influenced by any passion except love for their country, they presented and recommended to the people the plan produced by their joint and very unanimous counsels.

It is not yet forgotten, that well-grounded apprehensions of imminent danger induced the people of America to form the memorable congress of 1774. That body recommended certain measures to their constituents, and the event proved their wisdom; it yet is fresh in our memories how soon the press began to teem with pamphlets and weekly papers against those very measures. Not only many of the officers of government, who obeyed the dictates of personal interest, but others, from a mistaken estimate of consequences, from the undue influence of ancient attachments, or whose ambition aimed at objects which did not correspond with the public good, were indefatigable in their endeavours to persuade the people to reject the advice of that patriotic congress. Many, indeed, were deceived and deluded, but the great majority reasoned and decided judiciously; and happy they are in reflecting that they did so.

But if the people at large had reason to confide in the men of that congress, few of whom had then been fully tried or generally known, still greater reason have they now to respect the judgment and advice of the convention; for it is well known that some of the most distinguished members of that congress, who have been since tried and justly approved for patriotism and abilities, and who have grown old in acquiring political information, were also members of this convention, and carried into it their accumulated knowledge and experience.

It is worthy of remark, that not only the first, but every succeeding congress, as well as the late convention, have joined with the people in thinking that the prosperity of America depended on its union. To preserve and perpetuate it was the great object of the people in forming that convention; and it is also the great object of the plan, which the convention has advised them to accept. With what propriety therefore, or for what good purposes, are attempts at this particular period made by some men to depreciate the importance of the union?—or why is it suggested, that three or four confederacies would be better than one? am persuaded in my own mind, that the people have always thought right on this subject, and that their universal and uniform attachment to the cause of the union rests on great and weighty reasons.

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They who promote the idea of substituting a number of distinct confederacies in the room of the plan of the convention, seem clearly to foresee, that the rejection of it would put the continuance of the union in the utmost jeopardy. That certainly would be the case; and I sincerely wish it may be as clearly foreseen by every good citizen, that, whenever the dissolution of the union arrives, America will have reason to exclaim, in the words of the poet,-" Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!"

Character of Hamilton.-AMES.

But,

MEN of the most elevated minds have not always the readiest discernment of character. Perhaps he was sometimes too sudden and too lavish in bestowing his confidence: his manly spirit, disdaining artifice, suspected none. while the power of his friends over him seemed to have no limits, and really had none, in respect to those things which were of a nature to be yielded, no man, not the Roman Cato himself, was more inflexible on every point that touched, or only seemed to touch, his integrity and honour. With him it was not enough to be unsuspected; his bosom would have glowed like a furnace at its own whispers of reproach. Mere purity would have seemed to him below

praise; and such were his habits, and such his nature, that the pecuniary temptations, which many others can only with great exertion and self-denial resist, had no attractions for him. He was very far from obstinate; yet as is friends assailed his opinions with less profound thought than he had devoted to them, they were seldom shaken by discussion. He defended them, however, with as much mildness as force, and evinced that, if he did not yield, it was not for want of gentleness or modesty.

His early life we pass over; though his heroic spirit in the army has furnished a theme that is dear to patriotism, and will be sacred to glory.

In all the different stations, in which a life of active use fulness has placed him, we find him not more remarkably distinguished by the extent, than by the variety and versatility, of his talents. In every place, he made it apparent, that no other man could have filled it so well; and in times of critical importance, in which alone he desired employment, his services were justly deemed absolutely indispensable. As secretary of the treasury, his was the powerful spirit that presided over the chaos.

"Confusion heard his voice, and wild Uproar
Stood ruled."-.

Indeed, in organizing the federal government in 1789, every man, of either sense or candour, will allow, the difficulties seemed greater than the first-rate abilities could surmount. The event has shown that his abilities were greater than those difficulties. He surmounted them; and Washington's administration was the most wise and beneficent, the most prosperous, and ought to be the most popular, that ever was intrusted with the affairs of a nation. Great as was Washington's merit, much of it in plan, much in execution, will of course devolve upon his minister.

As a lawyer, his comprehensive genius reached the principles of his profession: he compassed its extent, ho fathomed its profound, perhaps, even more familiarly and easily than the rules of its practice. With most men law is a trade; with him it was a science.

As a statesman, he was not more distinguished for the great extent of his views, than by the caution with which he provided against impediments, and the watchfulness of his care over the right and liberty of the subject. In none of the many revenue bills which he framed, though committees reported them, is there to be found a single clause that savours of despotic power; not one that the sagest champions of law and liberty would, on that ground, hesitate to approve and adopt.

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It is rare that a man, who owes so much to nature, descends to seek more from industry; but he seemed to depend on industry as if nature had done nothing for him. His habits of investigation were very remarkable; his mind seemed to cling to his subject till he had exhaustea it. Hence the uncommon superiority of his reasoning powers a superiority that seemed to be augmented from every source, and to be fortified by every auxiliary-learning, taste, wit, imagination and eloquence. These were embellished and enforced by his temper and manners, by his fame and his virtues. It is difficult, in the midst of such various excellence, to say in what particular the effect of his greatness was most manifest. No man more promptly discerned truth; no man more clearly displayed it it was not merely made visible, seemed to come bright with illumination from his lips. But, prompt and clear as he was,-fervid as Demosthenes, like Cicero full of resource, he was not less remarkable for the copiousness and completeness of his argument, that left little for cavil, and nothing for doubt. Some men take their strongest argument as a weapon, and use no other; but he left nothing to be inquired for-nothing to be answered. He not only disarmed his adversaries of their pretexts and objections, but he stripped them of all excuse for having urged them; he confounded and subdued as well as convinced. He indemnified them, however, by making his discussion a complete map of his subject; so that his opponents might, indeed, feel ashamed of their mistakes, but they could not repeat them. In fact it was no common effort that could preserve a really able antagonist from becoming his convert; for the truth, which his researches so distinctly presented to the understanding of others, was

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