WE have met, to solemnize the Nativity of our Political Independence, and to unite in a chorus of thanks­giving for our emancipation from foreign dominion.— What object, more interesting, can attach the feelings of the human heart; what subject more worthy the attention of the philosopher? At such a scene the apathy of a stoic must warm into passion, and selfishness into philanthropy. Not to feel, were unworthy to be free. As Americans, we have but one interest; as Freemen, we are intitled to an independency of opinion. Calmness of discussion should therefore be substituted for passionate disputation, and rational argument for the insolence of resentment. Nei­ther the rancor of private enmity, nor the acrimony of party bickering, should allay the hilarity of the festive board, nor check the glowing enthusiasm of general senti­ment.

AMONG the revolutions which have varied the relati­ons of man, the principles and consequences of our own, are calculated to arrest the observation of the philanthro­pist, and to furnish the intelligent mind with ideas un­known to antiquity.

THE causes and effects of such a change, the means of preserving its permanency, and the beneficent effects of a similar general system, are the subjects of our present ad­dress; and are objects not unworthy the consideration of Freemen.

[Page 4]THAT love of equal liberty, so natural to the mind of man, impelled our ancestors to seek, in the uncultivated wilds of America, a refuge from oppression. A choice of sufferings was there only alternative. At home, the un­appeasable bigot armed with implements of torture, here, the painted savage, with an uplifted scalping knife, stood ready for sacrafice. The mercy of a pagan was prefered to the salutary chastisement of perverted christianity.— Struggling under the hard vicissitudes of the climate, sub­jected to poverty, disease and death, they sought their re­medy in perseverance, and their consolation in religion.

THE settlements in this Country gradually rose to that respectability and importance, as early to attract the at­tention of England. The children, whom she had once disavowed, and rejected from her bosom while in a state of infancy, to whose wants she had administered no relief, and whose cries of distress had not excited a tear of sensi­bility, she now, since the vigor of their own constitution had conquered every difficulty, and overcome every dan­ger, was willing to take to her parental arms, and cherish with the fondest feelings of maternal affection.

THE connexion between this Country and Great-Bri­tain, was gradually acquiring a consistency, which bid fair to be of long duration. But the Spanish and French wars had so incumbered the nation with debt and reduced the state of her finances, that, not content with monopo­lizing the trade of this Country, she wished for the privi­lege of a more intimate union, and, without the formality of asking to extort from us the hard earned fruits of our industry. Under the pretence of reimbursing herself for the expense she had been at in protecting us, it was requested, not as a favor, but as a right. This, to a people who had been nurtured in the principles of justice, and educated in the school of equality, sounded more like the command of a master over his obsequious slave, than the mild invitati­on of a parent, who regards the prosperity of his offspring. The strength of our attachment was not so great as to lead us to voluntary vassalage. Every imposition, whether in the form of stamped paper, or the more palatable one of a dish of tea, was resisted with firmness, and opposed as un­constitutional. The repeal of one oppressive act, was fol­lowed [Page 5] by another equally oppressive, till the parliament, in the petulance of anger, and in the true spirit of tyran­ny, declared, that they had a right to tax us, without our consent, in all cases whatever. We now, no longer saw the benevolent aspect of a parent. The veil was drawn aside; and the features of the government were displayed in all their native deformity. Finding that the sophistry of the cabinet, and the logic of an act of parliament, were insufficient to convince our understandings of the rectitude of their measures, they adopted, as irresistible, the kingly reasoning of the sword, and the royal argument of the bay­onet. America, from the posture of a suppliant, assumed the attitude of a hero. The humble voice of a petitioner, was changed to the manly tone of resistance, and the ser­vility of address to the spirit of Independence.

THE progress of the revolution, called forth all the en­ergies of our Country, whether it were to oppose the ene­my, in the field, or to detect the insidious policy of their temporising plans of accommodation. We fought, we bled, we conquered. By the assistance of a nation, whom now, it has become impiety to name, the arms of Britain were disgraced; the Lion, who had committed such wide havoc in the Indies, who had so often awaked Europe from her slumbers, retired silently to his den, defeated in his attempt, and mortified with the loss of his booty.

THAT wisdom, which guided us through the tempest of the revolution, which conducted us through every danger, & cheered our spirits amidst the calamatous vicissitudes of war, had yet to perform an act, which was to secure to us, and to posterity, the reward of our toils, and the compen­sation of our sufferings. In this act, we recognise the Federal Constitution, bottomed on the broad basis of the Rights of Man. The equality of nature pervades the whole; the sovereignty of the people is established; and those oppressive distinctions, of king and of subject, of no­ble and of vassal, of churchman and of papist, are exclud­ed. Here religious worship, unconstrained, emanates from the heart, without the fear of punishment; here the exclusion of religious subordination, secludes the possibili­ty of ecclesiastical despotism. The state chicanery of punishing one for the crimes of another, in order to make [Page 6] the latter infallible, is rejected as preposterous. No one is elevated above the laws, nor placed in such a state of political infallibility that he can do no wrong. As gov­ernment derives its power from the community, as it is created for its benefit, every one, to whom power is dele­gated, is personally responsible for the abuse. The delin­quent is to be tried before the tribunal of public censure, or arraigned before the legislative assembly of the union. A Government, like this, founded on the whole collected wisdom of the people, bids fair to produce effects un­known to any similar establishments of antiquity, which, at best, were ill concerted plans of systematized faction. Here the whole materials are collected from the people, the edifice is erected on their rights, ballanced by their power, and amendable at their pleasure. Here are not, as at Rome, discordant interests between the Senate and Peo­ple, to disturb the tranquillity of society; the plebian and patrician are one, and are equally eligible to the high­est, and most honorable offices of the State. The unity of interest between the citizen in private life, and the one engaged in the service of the public, supersedes the neces­sity of a standing army to awe into obedience, or compel into submission. The dependence of each individual on the suffrages of the people for his elevation to office, and the frequent recurrence he must have to the same mode of election for his continuance, bind him so firmly to the interest of the public, and so intimately blend his own, with the welfare of his constituents, as will insure the enaction of beneficent laws, and a steady adherence to the interests of the community. War, which in most coun­tries, is suspended on the dictum of an individual, or waits with complaisance in the antichamber of a corrupt nobility, must here, rest on the concurrence of united in­terest, and on the deliberate will of a majority of the people.

THE practice, under such a system, must be wise, pat­riotic, and benevolent. In its progress we have experi­enced the most gratifying effects. The general outlines of the picture are strongly marked with the pencil of in­tegrity and mildness; a feature is now and then distorted with a shade of insurrection, touched by the hand of fac­tion, or by the finger of some designing political dauber.

[Page 7]TO secure these blessings to ourselves, and to posterity, to transmit them unimpaired to future generations "to the last syllable of recorded time," is a duty, sacred and indispensable, a duty, incumbent upon us as the guar­dians of the constitution, and as the asserters of the rights of humanity, a duty, that will call forth all the faculties of the mind, and all the virtues of the heart.

AS the vices of mankind are the origin of all govern­ment, the necessity for energy in any government, will be in proportion to the vices which it creates, one recip­rocally generating the other, till the people are either de­pressed into servitude, or till the tyrant is crumbled into dust. It depends, therefore, upon the moral complexion of the government, the character of its laws, and the sys­tem of its policy, whether its existence shall be transitory or permanent, whether the rights of mankind shall stand secure, or be buried in their ruins by the sacrilegious hand of despotism.—When we survey man in a natural state, unrestricted by the laws of civil society, moving at his pleasure, and impelled by the propensities of his na­ture, his passions and his appetites, are the rules of his conduct, and the measure of his benevolence. His vices are thinly sown; his virtue is the result of his nature. It is in a state of refinement only, that the moral nature of man is tortured into ugliness; and it is under the opera­tion of laws enacted for the pretended purpose of moralizing his heart, that we discover the vilest features of man's cha­racter. It is, therefore, an axiom, as true in politics, as it is conformable to reason, that the office of government should be, to correct the vices of the heart, and to sup­ply the wants of nature. This is the true design of unit­ing men by the bonds of civil society, and the only means of rendering them more wise, more virtuous, and more happy—Our own Government is better calculated for the attainment of this end, than any other, as it is a super­structure built upon the natural relations of man, and conformable to the genuine elements of society. As we deviate from this plan, we recede from the principles of nature, from the principles of moral rectitude, and from the true scheme of social felicity. It is upon the prin­ciple of equality only, that man can exist uncorrupted [Page 8] in society, exhibit the powers of his understanding, and disclose the philanthropy of his soul.

THEREFORE, as virtue is the only support of a Gov­ernment, organized like ours, that we may avoid that vitiating policy, which has so defaced the moral traits of the human mind, which has extinguished the light of reason, and subverted the distinctions between virtue and vice, it will not be judged improper, to take a general survey of their effects in other governments of the world.

NO one would have the hardihood, at the present time, to openly violate our constitution, nor to go designedly forward for the avowed purpose of its subversion. The execration of the people would be his reward, and his head, the price of his temerity. It is the secret blow of the assassin that we have to fear, and not the manly at­tack of a generous enemy. The slow and silent progress of statute invasion, and a system of measures contraven­ing the nature of our constitution, whether they assume the shape of party spirit, whether they come armed with the panoply of energetic patriotism, or be clothed with the garb of official patronage, require the vigilance of suspicion, and the prudence of economy.

BY a fatality, somewhat extraordinary, most govern­ments have tended to confirm the worst passions of the heart; and, as though there were not objects enough in nature, artificial and imaginary ones have been devised, to rouse them into activity. To fight a man, and re­duce him to servitude, because his complexion is not so fair as our own, to fight him because he will not believe in our God, nor assume the exteriors of our worship, are principles not written in the book of nature, nor im­pressed upon the heart by the hand of a beneficent Deity. The laws of God, and of civil society have said, "thou shalt not kill;" but most governments say, you may kill for the sake of my honor, my glory, and my profit. The injustice of the cause, is shrouded beneath the emp­ty greatness of a name, the breath of a state-church sanctifies the iniquity, and covers its nakedness with the hood of pretended religion. By this means the great barrier between virtue and vice, is broken down; the exercise of our judgment, without which, neither can [Page 9] exist, is suspended between the honor of government, and the infallibility of the church.

MOST religions have been infallible in proportion to their connexion with the State. In proportion to this connexion, they have led the human mind astray from the path of uprightness, they have rendered illegible the moral precepts of nature, and obstructed the rays of pure unsophisticated christianity. All ordinances of the civil government to compel men to any particular worship, whether they issue from the Diet of an Empire, or from the Legislature of a humble Republic, divert the mind from the true intent of religious association, and convert it into a scene of hypocrisy, and into a solemn mockery of the divine attributes of the Governor of the universe. But, here, religion, unconnected with politics, is the free exercise of an unconstrained conscience, and worship, un­compelled by statute, the spontaneous effusion of the soul.

TO the same treacherous policy, which prevents an inquiry into the merits of war, are to assign that principle of most Governments, which renders the measures of ad­ministration, and the motives of its conduct, too sacred for investigation. And even in those Governments, as in England, where political discussions are tolerated, the le­gal intrenchments thrown round the cabinet, sufficiently protect it from the unhallowed footstep of popular curi­osity. Should any one there presume to express himself with freedom, his opinion must drop abortive from the press, or, with all the fearful apprehension of detection, must steal silently forth into day; and, if caught, must be punished like a heritic, and stigmatised with the name of sedition. This restriction serves as an ignis fatuus to conduct the writer into prison, and to strengthen the arm of their Government by feeding an order of men devoted to its interest.—That reciprocal confidence between the Government and people, so necessary to the tranquillity of state, flees from the distrustful countenance of such das­tardly policy, but meets with cordiality the liberal em­brace of free investigation. When a Government fears the approach of inquiry, a strong suspicion may be excit­ed, that its measures are not founded in justice, nor its conduct guided by the interests of the community. Some [Page 10] design may be suspected by the people; and if they dare not censure with openness, they will promote disquietude in secret. That obedience only to laws, which results from a general conviction of their utility, which arises from an open examination into the motives of the Legis­lature, can accord with the dignity of man, can be the only certain and vigorous means of their execution, and the only energy of Government founded upon the supre­macy of the people. A machine that moves by the in­voluntary impulse of the wind, is as much a moral agent, and as rational in its obedience, as the willing subject of a Kingly Government, should he chance to stumble upon his duty, or should he have the good fortune not to break a law which he never knew. So remote from every prin­ciple of virtue, is the disuse of our understanding in tra­cing the reasonableness of our duty, that by degrees, the moral faculties of man lose their vigor, the power of discrimination is debilitated; conscience, which wakes only as it knows a rule, ceases to approbate; and the whole in­telligence of the mind, is obscured by one general in­crustation of ignorance, of venality, and of selfishness.

EVERY inequality in the laws of a government, found­ed on the equal rights of Man, is subversive of its prin­ciple, and destructive to that equilibrium which invi­gorates the Constitution. The whole wealth of the na­tion should circulate, without obstruction, through every channel of society. Neither the monopoly of a compa­ny of merchants, nor the right of primogeniture, should furnish the former with the means of oppression, nor the latter with a title to hereditary insolence.—Every man, when he enters into society, has an equal claim its pro­tection, and an equal claim to the necessaries of subsist­ence. For the laws, therefore, to operate with partiali­ty in the distribution of property, is unjustly depriving him of his birth right, and feloniously taking from his mouth that morsel of bread, which the hand of nature had bounteously given. To protect the fruit of personal industry, and to secure to every man the exclusive enjoy­ment of private property, is, undoubtedly, the object of municipal law, without which, the object of Govern­ment is unattained, and every incentive to exertion is de­stroyed. [Page 11] But directing the force of a law, to the aggran­dizement of an individual, or perpetuating, by its influ­ence, an inheritance in any particular family, is obstruct­ing the current of justice, and depriving the body of community of those motives to industry, which must ex­ist in a country where the acquisition of property is freed from such devious policy, from the encumbrance of tithes, and from the fetters of entailment.—The tendency of such unnatural distribution, is luxury, profligacy, and vice, on one hand, and on the other, poverty, wretchedness, and crimes; on one hand are insolence and oppression, and on the other, tame servility and passive obedience. The sources of benevolence are dried up; the sensibilities of the heart are obliterated; the tender sympathies and social attractions of our nature, are congealed by the cold hand of pecuniary avarice. Governments, in general, to remedy these evils, which their own injustice has created, invent new crimes not recorded in the volume of nature, and con­found the morality of actions, by teaching mankind, that destroying the life of a fellow being, and taking the mo­ney from his pocket, are acts equally abhorrent from the principles of justice. The idol property, clothed in a bloody mantle, stands on a scaffold, holding in one hand the suffocating halter, and in the other, a sanguine ax, reeking with the blood of a just expiring victim. The very law, which was meant to restrain, conducts to new crimes; and the punishment of one leads to the commission of many. The laws of forfeiture and escheat, are a contract between government and iniquity. The crime of a father, deprives a family of subsistence, and clothes them with poverty, in­famy, and wretchedness. The calls of nature, and of self-preservation, more imperious than the unjust mandate of civil power, or the mortifying practice of beggary, urge them upon the benevolence of their enemies, or into the society of a band of robbers. The former leads to a vo­luntary, or, perhaps, to a necessary death, and the latter to a legal one.

SO indissoluble is the union between natural and moral evil, that, by removing the causes of the one, you destroy the propensities to the other. Whether penury be the ef­fect of a forfeiture, or the slow consequence of an unjust [Page 12] system of taxation, its influence is the same; and, unless the principles of our nature be totally perverted, it must seek a satisfaction from the charity of wealth, or fly for re­lief to the perpetration of crimes. As long, therefore, as revenue is the principle object of government, as long as private vices are considered public benefits, and nation­al treasures are filled with the price of iniquity, so long will nations be oppressed with the blessing of a public debt, so long will laws generate vice, and mankind groan under a Draconian code of penal law.

THIS will lead us into a short consideration of the benefits flowing from an extended civil list, and from national debt.

THE wealth of a people does not consist in the quantity of money which fills the exchequer, nor in what may be collected in revenue▪ but in the aggregate amount of indi­vidual property, whether it be appropriated to merchan­dise, to the improvement of agriculture, or to the encour­agement of manufactures. It may be said then, that the more a nation are indebted to themselves, the more is the public stock, for the attainment of these ends, increased. This idea, however pleasing, is but a delusion, supported by a political sophistry founded on interest. For the pro­perty invested in this debt, is a diversion only of a capital from the purposes of husbandry, to the purposes of mer­chandise, a change of taxes into an exchequer bill, made current by a credit, which is propped by the industry of the people. The increase, therefore, of this paper medium, must gradully exhaust the resources of agricultural im­provement, diminish the raw materials for the support of manufactures, and ultimately ruin the business of com­merce. Most governments, to pay the interest of this debt, guard, with sanguinary laws, the property of the subject from individual aggression, to secure it to themselves, and check the motives of private avarice, to satiate the appe­tite of their own rapacity.

THE necessary causes for the accumulation of public debt are few. Too often have unjustifiable wars, the extrava­gance of governments, and their want of economy in time of peace, drained those funds, which should be reserved for the season of danger, and for the purposes of defence. Posterity are saddled with the expence of their fathers' [Page 13] prodigality; they not only toil beneath the load of an hereditary debt, but beggar themselves, or draw bills on their successors, to supply the demands of their own necessities.

REVENUE, as an instrument of power, is devoutly to be imprecated.

ADOPTING for a principle, that man, as he has opportu­nity, will be tyrannical, the duty of the people will be, to secure their rights from the open assaults of prerogative, and from the covert attacks of influence and patronage. For power, unless wisely restricted, whether it be clad in the royal majesty of the former, or the more deceptive garb of the latter, will be equally infallible in its operati­on, and equally destructive to its object.

TO modern times only are we indebted for the sublime discovery, that a people may be as completely enslaved by the influence of office, and of favoritism, as by the more open and avowed attempts of arbitrary power. In Great Britain we may learn the stupendous effects of this modern mode of warfare against the unalienable privileges of man; and, in Ireland, the lesson is too impresive to be ea­sily forgotten. The Magna Charta of English liberty, and the bill of rights confirmed in the reign of Charles the first, have been but feeble barriers against the silent en­croachments of official influence; their forms only remain, while their substance has mouldered away. Of what avail is it, that the people have a check upon the prerogative of declaring war, when their representatives are nothing but pillars for the support of the crown; of what avail is it, that they can withhold an appropriation, when his Majes­ty can say to their representatives "be ye clothed and fed?" It is by this means that a body of men are created, who find it for their interest to perpetuate the abuses of govern­ment, and to retain its shadow, when its vital spirit is ex­tinguished. The vast combination of officers, pensioners, and p [...]cemen, who surround the throne, and live on the spoils of the constitution, keep up the farce, that public debt is a blessing, that reform would be dangerous, and innovation certain destruction. It is by this means, that the power of the people, in reforming its representation, and constitutionally attempting the repeal of any obnoxi­ous law, which is not only a right but a duty, is rendered nerveless and ineffectual.

[Page 14]THE splendor of the Crown, the dignity of office, the glory of the nation, are made the catch-penny words for the increase of salary, and for the augmentation of revenue. The wealth, which is thus ferretted from the pockets of the people, either returns upon them in a corrupted tide for the procurement of pleasure, and for the purchase of pro­motion, or dazzles their eyes, & insults their feelings with the pageantry of a court, making their oppression more cruel, and their poverty more conspicuous. The govern­ment to support its measures is now under the necessity of feeding a standing army. This answers the double pur­pose of increasing the revenue, and of enforcing its collec­on. The designs of the cabinet are covered by a war on the continent; the honor of the nation abroad diverts its mind from the load of oppression at home; and the idea of con­quering a foreign enemy, shuts its eyes to a domestic one.

THE effect of a standing army upon the mind of a free community, is destructive to the spirit of independence. The people will progressively believe, and practically be drawn into the opinion, that the army, and not themselves, are the means of their protection. That sense of their own importance, that dignity as the assertors of their own rights, and defenders of their own interest, will quickly expire; and the privilege of having arms for their defence, which is a fruit of the unalienable right of self preservati­on, will be considered as useless. In this situation, a game law, or some piece of policy, alike insidious, would dis­arm the community without a struggle, and destroy its in­dependence without the power of retraction. Some de­signing demagogue, like Dionysius, would subvert the li­berties of his country, or some enthusiastical hypocrite, like Cromwell, under the color of expelling a tyranny, would on its ruins establish a greater.

THE system of measures, pursued by Great-Britain to­wards this Country, presents itself as an incontestible ex­ample of the arbitrary schemes, to which a government will recur, when, depressed with debt, its aim is the aug­mentation of revenue. Had the evil genius of America suffered the imposition, the budding prosperity of our Country would have been blasted by the pestiferous influ­ence of a mercenary band of officers; still should we bask [Page 15] in the sunshine of royal favor, and shine the dim satellite of a foreign power. But too wise to be deluded, too enlight­ened not to see the consequences, we proclaimed our inde­pendence, and established the rights of Man. With the errors of others before us for our instruction, with the impressions of our own experience to teach us wisdom, it would be the consummation of folly, and of madness, not to preserve entire, and unsullied, the fruit of our labors, and the price of our blood.

THE records of our emancipation will be deposited a­mong the archives of glorious events. Our revolution will be the epoch from whence will be dated the com­mencement of man's political freedom; it will be to the civil world, what the reformation was to the religious, the means of restoring the polity of nations, to the true prin­ciples of reason, and the means of erecting the happiness of man on the social affections of his nature. The other es­tablishments of the world, have risen on the ruins of natu­ral equality, and on an inversion of the elements of socie­ty. In proportion, as they have subverted these, they have corrupted the principles of virtue, and demoralized the intelligence of the human heart. To destroy, there­fore, these unnatural excressences, which have vegetated from those abuses, the just, and only effectual remedy, is to eradicate the cause, and to probe the wound to the bot­tom of the malady. Then, no longer, will tyranny make the tear of distress glisten from the eye of humanity; then will the wide wasting influence of despotism, cease from its ravages. The peasant will no longer expire with hunger, while reaping the harvest of his lord. Towns depopulated by war, and whole provinces laid desolate, will no more strike the beholder with dismay, nor excite a pang of sensibility for the calamities of human nature. The instruments of oppression, the pageantry of kings, the pomp of nobility, and the hypocrisy of political priesthood, "will dissolve, and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind."