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frft merit lay in our not rejecting them. But when our fages began to difcern the ufe that might be made of materials then fo unpromifing, they discovered great talents and patriotism in combining them into the fyftem we now find in operation. It is indeed a fupendous fabric; the greateft political phenomenon, and probably will be confidered as the greatest advancement in the science of government, that all modern ages •have produced.

this is not the moment to go into a differtation on the peculiar character of our political conftitutions. The fubject being well understood by fo refpectable a portion of this affembly, and the time allotted to this part of the exercifea of the day being neceffarily fhort. I should hard ly expect to obtain your indulgence if I were even capable of doing juftice to fo great a theme. Otherwife the whole compafs of human affairs does not admit of a more profitable inquiry. Every citizen fhould make it his favourite ftudy, and confider it as an indifpenfable part of the edu

cation of his children.

But nations are educated like in dividual infants. They are what they are taught to be. They become whatever their tutors defire, and in vite, and prepare, and force them to become. They may be taught to reafon correctly; they may be taught to reafon perverfely; they may be taught not to reafon at all. The Jaft is the cafe of defpotifm; the fecond, where they reafon perverfely, is the cafe of a nation with an unfes tled and unprincipled government, by whatever technical name it may be distinguished; for a democracy with out a conftitution, though generally and juftly called the fchool of difor der and perverfity, is no more liable to thefe calamities than a monarchy ill defined, and without a known prin

ciple of action, and where the arm of power has not that fteady tenfion which would render it completely defpotic. The firtt, the cafe in which they reafon correctly, if it ever exift ed, or ever is to exift, must be ours. Our nation muft, it can, its legisla tors ought to fay, it fhall, be taught to reafon correctly, to act justly, to purfue its own intereft upon fo large a fcale as not to interfere with the intereft, or at least with the rights, of other nations. For the moment it should interfere with theirs, it could no longer be faid to be purfuing its own.

What then are the interefts of this nation, which it becomes us as private citizens (without any miffion but the autocratical right of individuals) to recommend to the great body of the American people on this aufpicious occafion? The most obvious, and I believe the most important, are comprised in two words; and to them I fhall con ine my obfervations; public improvements, and public infraction. Thefe two objects, though diftin&t in the organization which they will require, are fo fimilar in their effects, that most of the arguments that wilk apply to one, will apply equally to both. hey are both neceffary to the prefervation of our principles of government; they are both neceffary to the fupport of the fyftem into which thofe principles are wrought, the fyftem we now enjoy; they are each of them effential, perhaps in an equal degree, to the perfecting of that fyftem, to our perceiving and preparing the ameliorations of which it is fufceptible. Ifhal! dwell exclufively on these two objects, not be caufe they are the only ones that might be pointed out, out becaufe their importance, their immediate and preffing importance, feems to have been lefs attended to, and probably lefs understood, than it ought P

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to have been, among the general concerns of the Union.

Public improvements, fuch as roads, bridges, and canals, are ufual ly confidered only in a commercial and economical point of light; they ought likewife to be regarded in a inoral and political light. Caft your eyes over the furface of our dominion, with a view to its valt extent; with a view to its present and approaching ftate of population; with a view to the different habits,, manners, languages, origin, morals, maxims of the people; with a view to the nature of those ties, thofe political, artificial ties, which hold them together as one people, and which are to be relied upon to continue to hold them together as one people, when their number fhall rife to hundreds of mil. lions of freemen, poffeffing the spirit of independence that becomes their flation. What anxiety, what folicitude, what painful apprehenfions, muft naturally crowd upon the mind for the continuance of fuch a government, stretching its thin texture over fuch a country, and in the hands of fuch a people! The profpect is awful; the object, if attainable, is magnificent beyond comparison; but the difficulty of attaining it, and the danger of Jofing it, are fufficient to cloud the profpect in the eyes of many refpectable citizens, and force them to defpair. Defpair in this cafe, to an ardent fpirit devoted to the best good of his country, is a diftreffing flate indeed. To defpair of preferving the federal union of these republics, for an indefinite length of time, without a dismemberment, is to lose the highest hopes of human society, the greatest promise of bettering its condition that the efforts of all generations have produced. The man of sensibility who can contemplate without horror the dismemberment of this empire, has not well considered

its effects. And yet I scarcely mingle in society for a day without hearing t predicted, and the prediction uttered with a levity bordering on indiffe rence; and that too by well-disposed men of every political party. Hence I conclude, that the subject has not been examined with the attention it deserves. I am not yet so unhappy as to believe in this prediction; but I should be forced to believe in it, if I did not anticipate the use of other means than those we have yet employed, to perpetuate the union of the States. I hey must not be coercive means. Such ones, in most cases, would produce effects directly the reverfe of what would be intended. Our policy does not admit of standing armies; and if it did, we could not maintain them sufficiently numerous to restrain great bodies of freemen with arms in their hands, blinded by ignorance, heated by zeal, and d by factious chiefs; and if we could maintain them strong enough for that purpose, we all know they would very soon overturn the government they were intended to support.

With as little prospect of success could we rely upon legislative means; that is, upon laws against treason and misdemeanor, or any other chapter of the criminal code. Such laws may sometimes intimidate a chief of rebels, or a few unsupported traitors. But a whole geographical district. of rebels, half a nation of traitors, would legiflate against you. They would throw your laws into one fcale and their own into the other, and tofs in their bayonets to turn the balance.

No, the means to be relied upon to hold this beneficent union together, must apply directly to the intereft and convenience of the people; they must at the fame time, enable them to difcern that intereft, and be fenfible of that convenience. The people must become habituated to enjoy a visible, palpable,

palpable, incontestable good; a greater good than they could promife themselves from any change. They muft have information enough to perceive it, to reafon upon it, to know why they enjoy it, whence it flows, how it was attained, how it is to be preferved, and how it may be loft. The people of thefe States must be educated for their ftation, as mempers of the great community. They muft receive a republican education; be taught the duties and the rights of freemen; that is, of American free. men, not the freemen that are fo by farts, by frenzy, and in mobs, who would fill the forum at the nod of Clodius, or the prytaneum at that of Cleon; nor the freemen of one day in feven years, who would rush together for fale at the huftings of Brent ford, and clamour and bludgeon for a man whofe principles and perfon were to them alike unknown and unregarded.

Each American freeman is an integral member of the fovereignty; he is a co-eftate of the empire, carrying on its government by his delegates. The first right he poffeffes, after that of breathing the vital air, is the right of being taught the management of the power to which he is born. It is a ferious duty of the fociety towards him, an unquestionable right of the individual from the Society.

In a monarchy, the education of the prince is justly deemed a concern of the nation. It is done at their expense; and why is it fo? it is because they are deeply interested in his being well educated, that he may be able to adminifter the government well, to conduct the concerns of the nation wifely, on their own conicutional principles. My friends, is it not even more important that our princes, our millions of princes, hould be educated for their ftation,

than the fingle prince of a monarchy ? If a fingle prince goes wrong, ob ftinately and incurably wrong, he may be fet afide for another, without overturning the ftate. But if our fovereigns, in their multitudinous exercife of power, thould become obftinate and incurable in wrong, you cannot fet them afide. But they will fet you afide; they will fet them. felves afide; they will crush the ftate, and convulfe the nation. The refult is military defpotifm, difmem-. berment of the great republic, and, after a fufficient courfe of devaftation by civil wars, the fettlement of a few ferocious monarchies, prepared to act over again the fame degrading fcenes of mutual encroachment and vindictive war, which difgrace modern Europe; and from which many writers have told us, that mankind are never to be free.

Our habits of thinking, and even of reasoning, it must be confeffed, are still borrowed from feudal princi ples and monarchical eftablishments. As a nation we are not up to our çircumstances. Our principles in the abftract, as wrought into our state and federal conftitutions, are in general worthy of the highett praise; they do honour to the human intelle&t. But the practical tone and tension of our minds do not well correfpond with thofe principles. We are like a perfon converfing in a foreign language, whofe idiom is not yet familiar to him. He thinks in his own native language, and is obliged to tranflate as he talks; which gives a stiffness to his difcourfe, and betrays a certain einbarraffment which nothing can remove but ficquent exercife and long practice. We are accustomed to fpeak and reafon relative to the people's education, precifely like the aristocratical fubject's of a European monarchy. Some fay the people have no need of in. fruction;

ftruction; they already know too much; they cannot all be legiflators and judges and generals; the great mafs muft work for a living, and they need no other knowledge than what is fufficient for that purpose. Others will tell you it is very well for the people to get as much education as they can; but it is their own concern, the state has nothing to do with it; every parent, out of regard to his offspring, will give them what he can, and that will be enough.

I will not fay how far this manner of treating the fubject is proper even in Europe, whence we borrowed it. But I will fay that nothing is more prepofterous in America. It is direatly contrary to the vital principles of our conftitutions, and its inevita ble tendency is to destroy them. A univerfal fyftem of education is fo far from being a matter of indifference to the public, under our focial compact, that it is inconteftibly one of the first duties of the government, one of the higheft interefts of the nation, one of the most facred rights of the individual, the vital fluid of organized liberty, the precious aliment without which your republic cannot be fupported.

I do not mean that our legiflators Thould turn pedagogues, or fend their commiffioners forth to difcipline every child in this nation. Neither do I mean to betray fo much temerity as to speak of the best mode of combining a fyftem of publie inftruction. But I feel it my duty, on this occafion, to use the freedom to which I am accustomed, and fuggeft the propriety of bringing forward fome fyftem that fhall be adequate to the object. I am clearly of opinion, that it is already within the power of our legislative bodies, both federal and provincial; but if it is not, the people ought to place it there, and fee that it is exercifed. It is certain

that the plan, if properly arranged and wifely conducted, would not be expenfive. And there is no doubt of its abfolute irresistible neceffity, if we mean to preferve either our res prefentauve principle, or our federal union.

It is not intended that every citi zen fhould be a judge, or a general, or a legiflator. But every citizen is a voter; and if he has not the inftruction neceffary to enable him to difcriminate between the characters of men, to withstand the intrigues of the wicked, and to perceive what is right, he immediately becomes a tool for knayes to work with; he becomes both an object and an inftrument of corruption; his right of voting becomes an injury to himself, and a nuifance to fociety. It is in this fenfe that the people are faid to be" their own worst enemies.” Their freedom itself is found to be an infupportable calamity; and their only confolation (a dreary confola tion indeed) is, that it cannot laft long

The time is faft approaching, when the United States will be out of debt, if no extraordinary call for money to repel foreign aggreffion fhould intervene. Our furplus revenue already affords the means of entering upon the fyitem of public works, and of be ginning to difcharge our duty in this respect. The report of the fecretary of the treafury on these works, which is, or cught to be in the hands of every citizen, will how their feafibility as to the funds; and it developes a part of the advantages with which the fyftem must be attended. But neither that diftinguished ftatefman, nor any other human being, could detail and fet forth all the advantages that would arife from fuch a fyftem carried to its proper extent. They are incalculably great, and unfpeak ably various. They would bind the

States

States together in a band of union
that every one could perceive, that
every one muft cherish, and nothing
could destroy. This of itself is an
advantage fo great, if confidered in
all its confequences, that it feems
almoft ufelefs to notice any other.
It would facilitate the means of in-
ftructing the people; it would teach
them to cherish the union as the
fource of their happiness, and to
know why it was fo; and this is a
confiderable portion of the education
they require. It would greatly in
creafe the value of property, and the
wealth of individuals, and thereby
enable them to augment the public
revenue. But what is more, it would
itself augment the revenue in a more
direct manner by enhancing the value
of the public lands; which would
thus fell fafter and bring a higher
price. In this manner, the first mo.
nies laid out by the government on
roads and canals, would be a repro-
ductive property; it would be con-
ftantly fending back more money into
the treafury than was taken from it
for this purpofe. So that all the ad
vantages of every kind, public and
private, prefent and future, commer-
cial and economical, phyfical, moral,
and political, would be fo much clear
gain. There would be nothing de-
ftroyed but errors and prejudices, no-
thing removed but the dangers that
now threaten our invaluable inftitu-
tions.

To do equal juftice, and give fatisfaction to the people in every ftate in the Union, the fums to be expended in each year fhould be diftributed in the feveral States, according to their population. This is the general understanding among the friends of the fyftem; and the fecretary has not neglected to keep it in view in his luminous report.

Our prefent legiflators ought to confider, how much true glory would

redound to them from being the first to arrange and adopt fuch a fyftem., How different from the falle glory commonly acquired by the governments of other countries. Louis XIV. toiled and tormented himself, and all Europe, through a long life, to acquire glory. He made unjust wars, obtained many victories, and fuffered many defeats. He augmented the, ftanding armies of France from forty thousand to two hundred thoufand men; and thus obliged the other pow ers of Europe to augment their means of defence in that proportion; means which have drained the public treas furies, and oppreffed the people of Europe ever fince. And what is the glory that now remains to the name of Louis XIV? Only the canal of Languedoc. This indeed is a title to true glory; and it is almost the only fubject on which his name is now mentioned in France but with opprobrium and deteftation.

The government of England expended one hundred and thirty-nine millions fterling in the war underta ken to fubjugate the American color nies. This fum, about fix hundred millions of dollars, laid out in the conftruction of canals, at twenty thouand dollars a mile, would have made thirty thousand miles of canal; about the fame length of way as all the prefent poft-roads in the United States and their territories; or a line that would reach once and a quarter round the globe of this earth, on the circle of the equator. Or if the fame fum could be diftributed in a series of progreffive improvements, a part in canals, and part in roads, bridges and fchool establishments, beginning with two millions a-year, it would make a garden of the United States, and people it with a race of men worthy to enjoy it; a garden extending over a Continent giving a glorious example to mankind of the true prin

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