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Colonies probably than in any other people of the earth, and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the true temper of their minds and the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to 5 lay open somewhat more largely.

First, the people of the Colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The Colonists emigrated from you when this part of your 10 character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstrac15 tions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object; and every nation has formed to itself some favorite point, which by way of eminence becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests for freedom in this country 20 were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily on the right of election of magistrates; or on the balance among the several orders of the state. The question of money was not with them 25 so immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens, and most eloquent tongues, have been exercised; the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance of this point, it was not 30 only necessary for those who in argument defended the excellence of the English Constitution to insist on this privilege of granting money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right had been acknowledged in ancient parchments and blind usages to reside in a certain body 35 called a House of Commons. They went much farther;

possess the power of granting their own money shadow of liberty can subsist. The Colonies dra you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and pri Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and atta this specific point of taxing. Liberty might be might be endangered, in twenty other particular out their being much pleased or alarmed. He felt its pulse; and as they found that beat, they themselves sick or sound. I do not say wheth were right or wrong in applying your general arg to their own case. It is not easy, indeed, to monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact they did thus apply those general arguments; a mode of governing them, whether through le indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirme in the imagination that they, as well as you, interest in these common principles.

They were further confirmed in this pleasing the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. governments are popular in an high degree; so merely popular; in all, the popular representa the most weighty; and this share of the people ordinary government never fails to inspire the lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from ever tends to deprive them of their chief importa If anything were wanting to this necessary of of the form of government, religion would have a complete effect. Religion, always a principle of

in this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The people are Protestants; and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission 5 of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favorable to liberty, but built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of this averseness in the dissenting churches from all that looks like absolute government is so much to be sought in their religious tenets, as in their 10 history. Every one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is at least co-eval with most of the governments where it prevails; that it has generally gone hand in hand with them, and received great favor and every kind of support from authority. The Church of England too 15 was formed from her cradle under the nursing care of regular government. But the dissenting interests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world, and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existence 20 depended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our Northern Colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dis25 sent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of denominations agreeing in nothing but in the communion of the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the Northern Provinces, where the Church of England, notwithstanding its legal rights, 30 is in reality no more than a sort of private sect, not com

posing most probably the tenth of the people. The Colonists left England when this spirit was high, and in the emigrants was the highest of all; and even that stream of foreigners which has been constantly flowing 35 into these Colonies has, for the greatest part, been com

a large body, and has a regular establishment. I tainly true. There is, however, a circumstance at these Colonies which, in my opinion, fully cou ances this difference, and makes the spirit of libe more high and haughty than in those to the nor It is that in Virginia and the Carolinas they hav multitude of slaves. Where this is the case in a of the world, those who are free are by far t proud and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and p Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries is a common blessing and as broad and general air, may be united with much abject toil, wit misery, with all the exterior of servitude; libert amongst them, like something that is more no liberal. I do not mean, Sir, to commend the morality of this sentiment, which has at least a pride as virtue in it; but I cannot alter the na man. The fact is so; and these people of the S Colonies are much more strongly, and with an hig more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than t the northward. Such were all the ancient c wealths; such were our Gothic ancestors; such days were the Poles; and such will be all ma slaves, who are not slaves themselves. In such a the haughtiness of domination combines with th of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible. Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance

ead, endeavor to obtain some smattering in that ce. I have been told by an eminent bookseller, in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular tion, were so many books as those on the law exed to the Plantations. The Colonists have now n into the way of printing them for their own use. ar that they have sold nearly as many of Blacke's Commentaries in America as in England. GenGage marks out this disposition very particularly in ter on your table. He states that all the people s government are lawyers, or smatterers in law; and in Boston they have been enabled, by successful ne, wholly to evade many parts of one of your capienal constitutions. The smartness of debate will say this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience, the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well. my honorable and learned friend on the floor, who escends to mark what I say for animadversion, will in that ground. He has heard, as well as I, that great honors and great emoluments do not win this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a idable adversary to government. If the spirit be tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is porn and litigious. Abeunt studia in mores. This renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt tack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other tries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercu

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