upon the general government as approaching a crisis of most fearful and disastrous import. The mischief lies not in the immediate consequence of that simple act itself, for, to those who knew the character of the man, such could be neither new nor unexpected; but in the ready proof which it affords of that remarkable disposition in the public mind, to submit without reflection, to believe without inquiry, and to yield without a struggle.-Upon a people, thus swayed by their passions and betrayed by their prejudices, there is no effort of ambition, or exertion of power, that can fail of its effect; every successful adventure strengthens its previous conquest and invites to fresh acquisitions. Such, we may safely say, is the portentous course of the short but eventful progress of John Q. Adams. From one steady but rapid encroachment to another, and with a purpose as persevering as it was undiverted, he has wound up the affairs of one of the states, and that state is Georgia.Indulged in his caprice, and backed by power, he has opposed his unnatural tyranny to her independence; and making a short case of the contest, he has brought her exactly to the point where she must resist the one or resign the other. I propose then, in a language suited, perhaps, to an expiring privilege, once more to bring the wrongs and insults of Georgia before her deluded and submissive people. In this attempt I feel an anxiety reaching far beyond the obligation of a public pledge, and a concern infinitely more unquiet than the transient conflicts of party.-Individual feeling and private aggression are swallowed up in the more conspicuous outrage upon the character and rights of a whole country; and to make that country sensible of its injuries and to act as becomes the disturbed and unwelcome aspect of the occasion, is a task pregnant with no common difficulty, and awakening the deepest solicitude. I shall, in the first place, examine some fresh causes of complaint on the part of Georgia, and, connected with the subject, it will be necessary to take a view of the origin and powers of the general government: : a question, it will be readily admitted, often debated, but can never be too well understood, especially at that critical and anxious moment of time when argument is about to cease, and something stronger than discussion may or ought to follow. I shall then review some of the subjects examined on a former occasion, and the consequences which is said to have resulted therefrom.

The schemes of the general government have so far developed themselves as to leave its object entirely level to the capacity of every reasonable man who thinks upon the subject, and every honest one who feels for his rights. Its purpose and affection is fixed upon a grand na» tional government; and nothing short of its splendour and power seems suited to the aspiring genius of the times. The petty offices, and still lower objects of state governments, offer nothing to soothe the pride and satisfy the ambition of high pretension.-Shorn of their strength, by the concessions of power already made, the unenviable remnant yet left, seems still to be an object of eager request; and that contest can never long be doubtful where a bold and daring onset is met by a timid and reJuctant resistance. Our whole error lies in forgetting the origin of the Federal government. The great mass of the people seem to think that the States have sprung from the Union instead of the Union from the

States; and it has been the studied aim of the latter to fix that growing notion upon the weakness and partiality of an unthinking community.It is scarcely ever recollected that if it were not for that scourge of the world, war, there never would have been any use for the Federal government. The states were entirely competent to their own self-government. The dread of intestine ruptures, and the expectation of foreign aggression were alone the legitimate cause of the confederation; any other motive is idle and ridiculous; for any other motive would imply the degrading reproach that the states were unable to supply their own wants, or were unequal to the management of their own concerns. But there are thousands who know nothing of the political history of this country beyond that convulsion which ended in its independence; and believing that transcendent event to be the dawn of our fame and prosperity, and vitally resulting from the exertions of the Union, every thing must now be yielded to that Union in token of gratitude and respect.The character of the states, the nature of their governments, and the extent of their rights, prior to the revolution, have been put aside for the more pleasing but delusive contemplation of the singular results of that memorable struggle, and the proud but giddy elevation to which they have so rapidly borne us. Brought together by feelings of so strong a character, appealing so directly to the best principles of the heart, and urged by considerations of such clamorous interest, the states could never separate and fall back to their accustomed pursuits and independence, as related to each other, in which they were found and left by the revolution. Having suffered and prospered together, (and in these terms may be safely included every idea which may be conceived of either gloom or glory,) there is surely nothing unnatural in the political connection which ensued, aside from the solid interest and permanent safety which was expected, if not promised, from that event. It is the self-degrading view of themselves, by the states, of which I complain.— It is the oblivion into which they have sunk the fairest traits of their character that causes alarm. It is not the powers which they have lent, but the rights which they have lost that bear upon our regrets. There was a spirit once in this country sensitive, almost to a fault, at the least insult or injury; and what now is received with indifference was then a rightful matter of revolt.-Georgia has been worse treated by the Union than she was by Great Britain; and this I will endeavor to prove.

To understand the character of that complete independence of each other, which the states possessed and enjoyed anterior to the Revolution, and which some seem to have forgotten, and others affect to despise, but which is very essential to the purpose of my argument, it will be necessary to state that from the year 1497, when the continent of North America was first discovered, more than a century elapsed before any permanent settlement was made. The greater part of the United States, east of Florida, was originally called Virginia, in honour of Elizabeth, who, following the practice of other European Monarchs, granted large tracts of country, without regard to the rights of the aboriginal possessors. The earliest settlement, in pursuance of these grants, was made within the limits of the present State of Virginia, under the authority of James I. Seven years afterwards, a colony of Dutch commenced a

settlement upon the present Island of N. York, and retained possession until 1664, when it was surrendered to the British in the reign of Charles II. A body of Puritans, from England, made a settlement in Massachusetts, in the year 1620. Delaware was next settled by the Swedes. Connecticut and Maryland were colonized about the same time, the first by emigrants from Massachusetts, in 1633; the other, by a party of Roman Catholics from England. Rhode Island, in 1635, was settled by persons driven from Massachusetts by religious persecution. In 1637, New Hampshire was settled, principally from the same cause. Some of the Virginia settlers founded the State of North-Carolina in the year 1663; and in seven years after, South Carolina commenced its settlements. New Jersey was first partially settled by the Dutch and Swedes, but was not permanently founded until after the year 1670. The colony of Pennsylvania was commenced by the Swedes at an early period, but was finally organized by William Penn, in 1681. Georgia, the last (and lately made the least) of the original thirteen states, was founded in the year 1732, by General Oglethorpe. I have been thus particular in giving the origin of the states, that it may be seen how per fectly independent of each other they were originally founded. The New World was carved up into different states, and as it may be seen, from different nations, possessing different rights, governed by different laws, and pursuing different interests. They could not have been more independent, if separated by an ocean. The first suggestion which grows out of this historial sketch is, at what time, by what causes, and to what extent, this independence has been changed. These Colonies, though perfectly independent of each other, for the identical reasons which afterwards united them, looked to some parent state for protection, and that State was Great Britain.-But even as against that guardian, they unceasingly denied her right to interfere with their internal coneerns, always maintaining they were fully competent to that object.Let any superficial reader examine the causes which led to the Revolution, and he will find that the Colonies, though as States, they are now humbled and spirit broken, they then flashed like lightning at the slightest invasion of their right. Great Britain, in two hundred years, with all her power and ingenuity, and apparently with ten-fold more right, was never able, in the internal regulation of the Colonies, to drive the first entering wedge, nor in that time did she accomplish what the general government has done in the short space of thirty years.-Various were the acts, and at various times, and under various states of feeling were they urged to establish the principle that the mother country had the right to" bind the Colonies in all cases whatsoever." The result of such an unnatural and abhorrent experiment must be fresh upon the recollection of every one, save perhaps the misguided and infatuated rulers of the general government. Against many of the attempts of the British Parliament, such as Port Laws, Navigation Acts, Admiralty Regulations, Stamp Acts, the appointment and pay of Officers, and particularly Tax Laws, sometimes secretly, and at others openly, intended to fix down, irrevocably, the above obnoxious principle. Opinions like these spread through all America, and were intrepidly maintained against the usurpations of the mother country, viz. “That the Colonial assemblies posses

sed all the powers of legislation not surrendered by compact, and were bound by no laws, to which their representatives had not consented; that acts of parliament possessed only an external obligation; that they could regulate commerce, but not the interior affairs of the Colonies."* In an address from the Assembly of Massachusetts to the British government, these were the doctrines advanced, at a time too, when their temper and judgment were cool and collected, "that this house is at all times ready to recognize his majesty's high Court of Parliament, as the Supreme Legislative Power over the whole empire, so far as its superintending authority is consistent with the fundamental rules of the Consti

tution."

Again," there are fundamental rules of the Constitution which it is humbly presumed neither the Supreme Legislative nor the Supreme Executive can alter. In all free states, the Constitution is fixed. It is from thence the legislative derives its authority-therefore it cannot change the Constitution without destroying its own foundation.”—And in a letter from this same State to the other Colonies, communicating the above address, and sounding the alarm of British encroachment, they declare "that it is an essential unalterable right in nature, and ever held sacred and irrevocable, that what a man hath honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but cannot be taken away without his consent: That the Americans may therefore, exclusive of any consideration of charter rights, with decent firmness adapted to the charac ter of freemen, assert this natural and constitutional right." This circular letter, says Marshall," was extremely well received in the other Colonies," and in answer to it, the Assembly of Virginia, among others things, resolved, "that his Majesty's most liege people of this, his most ancient Colony, have enjoyed the right of being governed by their own Assembly, in the article of taxes and INTERNAL POLICE, and that the same has never been forfeited, nor any other way yielded up, but have been constantly recognized by the King and people of Great Britain and that every attempt to vest such a power in any person or persons whatsoever, other than the General Assembly aforesaid, is illegal, unconstitutional and unjust, and has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom."-Enough of quotations! Can principles be plainer, or language more explicit? Who misunderstands this doctrine? Does any one believe that the people of the United States meant no more by the Revolution than a mere change of masters? That the love of novelty alone has induced them to strike off one set of fetters, to impose another, precisely similar, merely because they are of their own forging? Why struggle through every species of suffering, why faint under every hardship, why waste the wealth and sa.crifice the youth of an infant country, to maintain and def nd the principles of self internal government and the unalienable right of property, if when the work was accomplished they should madly turn round and throw themselves in new-made manacles at the feet of another Tyrant. The thing is to intolerable for the weakest credulity.-Motives always determine the character of an action, and the revolution of a nation is guided by as settled an intent, and has as fixed an object as the smallest

:

า

* Marshall's Life of Washington.

movement of an individual; and the just reproach of folly or madness is alike applicable to either. What then would have been thought of an individual who should thus have acted? We have here then, clearly indicated the motive of the revolution: it was not a change of Tyrants. It was to secure and preserve unimpaired, that separate and exclusive independence which belonged to the States, not in their joint, but several capacity. Having triumphed in their perilo s undertaking, not however without encountering the most unspeakable difficulties, which left in their train jealousies they could never appease, and burthens they could not discharge, which exposed them to dissentions from within or invasion from without, they were willing to transfer, and nothing more, the right of protection which had just been forfeited by the mother country, to the more tender and parental care of the general government. It was PHYSICAL and not MORAL force; it was strength and not intelligence needed and sought by the States. Any thing more than this was never intended. To have required any thing more than this, apart from the inconsistency of the claim, would have been inhuman in the extreme, for it would have been seizing an advantage, offered solely though the weakness of an exhausted people just resting from a trying contest, distracted with the anguish of their sufferings, and bleeding from a thousand wounds.

(No. 2.)

"When a child grows easy and content by being humored; and when a lover be comes satisfied by small compliances, without farther pursuits, then expect to find POWER Content with small concession-therefore, never give way to it so far as to make the least breach in the constitution, through which a million of abuses and en croachments will certainly, in time, force their way."—Phocion.

THERE is nothing in which we are so much deceived as in the nature and character of our own foibles; and it is a remarkable fact, that we are often found reprobating in others, that which forms in ourselves the most conspicuous folly. No reproach is so unsparing, and no satire is so pungent as that which recoils-it is not wonderful then, that we should ascribe unfaithfulness to the mirror that reflects our own deformity. To mock the institutions of other countries, is the constant amusement of our froward humor. The people of the U. States made a great effort, and certainly achieved much, when they discarded the follies of the old world; and, when the suddenness and totality of the change is considered, it has at least the appearance of a charm, if not the merit of a miracle. The public morals exhibit however, a fearful indication of a relapse, and seem to prove that, among all our political virtues, there is still wanting one, of all others the most necessary, to secure the rest; I mean stability, that which offers the subject of our greatest scoffs against European governments. Would any one, twenty years ago, have believed that John Q. Adams would now be occupying the very tower, from which, under the memorable madiness of his father, the liberties of America were first assailed and received their deadliest