ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

man in America is equally concerned in the welfare and profperity of his country and its government; for his own felicity can only be coexistent with it, and to fuffer his ambition to run counter to the general weal would be madness in an enlightened commonwealth, as it could only tend to produce his own eternal difgrace and ruin, where the genius of freedom is enthroned in the heart of every citizen.

Europe has long been enslaved by forms and authorities; and while its multifarious laws and customs have served to perplex profeffional men, the fophiftry employed in expounding them has com pletely bewildered the imaginations of its citizens, and produced an obfcurity of ideas upon the subject of jurisprudence and government, and a depravity of morals which is truly deplorable.

Religion, or what is called an establishment in Europe, has had and continues to have its share in rivetting the fetters of ignorance. The elucidation of truth has been retarded by the TYRANNY OF THE CHURCH; for while priests have been the pedagogues of religion, morals, fentiments, and politics, their INTERESTED VIEWS have caused them to flatter those governments whose interest it has been to keep the people ignorant, because it has fecured to them the undifturbed divifion of the spoils of the great bulk of induftrious citizens, while they were offering an indignity to the DEITY as grofs as their fyftem has been unnatural and unjust. What can be a greater prefumption, or a higher pitch of arrogance, than prefuming to arraign or judge of the fentiments of men, the propriety of which is to be determined before a tribunal in Heaven? It is an infult too gross to merit a comment. It has been fubverfive of all good morals, by affording a veil to cover the hypocrify of the most defigning knaves.

In America this evil has ceafed to exift, the monster is destroyed, the unnatural alliance of church and ftate is broken, and the people left to the choice of their own religion, as well as of their own paftors; while they revere the former, will no doubt reward the latter as they ment; they will make a rapid progress in all the social virtues, while a clafs of men, who, from being privileged, had become the curte of Europe for more than three centuries, will in America, from the ofs of all privileges but those which are the reward of piety and virtue, be the means of extending the knowledge and hap pinels of the human race.

In

In the United States, every man who is taxed has a vote in the appointment of the reprefentatives of the State in which he refides, as well as of the general government. Thus the people have the privilege of objecting to fuch characters for their governors as have not the public approbation; which has the good effect of producing harmony between the government and the people-of obliging men who aspire to the honours of their country to refpect the public opinion; and as all the powers of government originate with, fo they revert to the people; the judiciary they have referved to themselves. through the medium of juries. The legiflative they intruft to their representatives who are effentially the fame; and the executive emanates from the legislature, fo that the whole are ultimately refponfible to the people. The executive to the representatives, and the reprefentatives to their conftituents.

A free government has often been compared to a pyramid. This allufion is made with peculiar propriety in the system of government adopted by the United States; it is laid on the broad basis of the people; its powers gradually rife, while they are confined, in proportion as they ascend. When you examine all its parts, they will invariably be found to preferve that effential mark of free government, and without which fuch a government cannot exist—a chain of connection with the people. The advantages refulting from this fyftem, while they are great, will not be confined to the United States, it will draw from Europe many worthy characters who pant for the enjoyment of freedom. It will induce princes, in order to preserve their subjects, to restore to them a portion of that liberty of which they have for many ages deprived them. It will be subservient to the great defigns of Providence with regard to this globe, the mul tiplication of mankind, their improvement in knowledge, and their advancement in happiness.

Nor are the immutable principles on which the American government is built, its only advantage to the people at large; the fame fpirit that fixed it on the basis of liberty has contributed to make the offices of government, posts of honour and not of profit; hence the American government is administered at an expense so exceedingly trifling, that had the affertion been made of the practicableness of it a few years back, it would have obtained no credit. It is a well-known fact, that the general government of America does not amount to within forty thousand pounds per annum of the English penfion lift; and if the government of the feparate States are added to it, it

[ocr errors][merged small]

will not make an addition thereto equal to what the amount of finecure places would make to the penfion lift in Great-Britain; yet men of character and abilities are not wanting to fill its refpective offices; but on the contrary, while the fpirit of the government, by opening the channel of promotion to every individual, is truly favourable to the growth of genius, a virtuous ambition to be inftrumental in promoting the happiness of mankind, always enfures a fufficient number of candidates for public confidence.

IN RESPECT OF NATIONAL DEBT.

The debt of the United States is divided into two claffes, foreign and domeftic. The foreign debt is compofed, in capital, of a loan made in France of twenty-four millions of livres at five per cent.; another made in Holland, under the guarantee of France, of ten millions

at four per cent. both amounting in dollars to Spain at five per cent. . .

In Holland, in four different loans

[ocr errors]

dolls.

6,296,296

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Domestic debt liquidated, capital and interest, to the

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

174,011 3,600,000

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]
[merged small][ocr errors]

54,124,464

In the profecution of the war each individual state had occafion to Contract a debt of its own, which, for a variety of reasons, it was thought beft that the Congress should assume and add to the general mafs of the debt of the United States.

The fums thus affumed, which are fuppofed to

absorb nearly the whole of all the state debts, amount in the whole to

[ocr errors]

So that the total amount of the prefent debt of the
United States is

[ocr errors]

Annual intereft of this fum, as ftipulated

[ocr errors]

25,000,009

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Thus we fee that the Americans pay less than a million fterling a year, including the expenfes of their government for having maintained their liberty; while Great-Britain pays more than four millions fterling additional annual expense for having attempted to deprive them of it; and by the measures taken by the new government, the Americans are in a fair way not only to pay their intereft, but to fink the principal of their debt, and that without direct taxation.

Thus while the European governments draw annually from their fubjects at least one fourth of their bona fide property to defray the interest of their public debt, the citizens of the United States are fcarce fenfible of any burthen arifing therefrom; nay, on the con trary, in its prefent state, it is to them a real national advantage.*

EQUALITY OF SITUATION.

This is far from being the least of the advantages which America poffeffes over European nations. In the greater part of Europe the

* If the secret history of the debt contracted in France were published, it would difover the origin of many fortunes which have aftonished us. It is certain, for instance, that M. de Vergennes difpofed of these loans at pleasure, caufed military stores and merchandise to be furnished by perfons attached to him, and fuffered not their accounts to be difputed. It is a fact, that in his accounts with Congress, there was one million of livres that he never accounted for, after all the demands that were made to him. It is likewife a fact, that out of the forty-feven millions pretended to be furnished in the above articles by France to Congrefs, the employment of twenty-one millions is without vouchers.

M. Beaumarchais, in a memoir published fome years ago, pretends to be the creditor of Congress for millions. There is a report made to Congress by two refpectable members, in which they prove, that he now owes Congress seven hundred and forty-two thoufand four hundred and thirteen livres, and a million more, if the wandering million above mentioned has fallen into his hands. These reporters make a ftriking picture of the manœuvres practifed to deceive the Americans.

Scarce a doubt, we think, can be entertained, but when the government of France shall be secured by external and internal tranquillity, it will cause some account to be rendered of the fums fquandered in the part which France took in the American war; or rather the fums which, inftead of going to fuccour those brave ftrugglers for liberty, went to adorn the bed-chambers of an actref● ? Adeline did more mifchief to the Ame ricans than a regiment of Heffians.

distance

distance between the higher and lower claffes of fociety is fo greaf, as to beget on the part of the former a fupercilious haughtiness, and almoft total neglect of all the focial virtues. The fituations in which the privileged ariftocracy of Europe are placed, may be confidered as hotbeds of vice, ignorance, and folly-nurfed in principles of tyranny and fuperftition-born, as many of them are, to the enjoyment of unearned honours, and riches derived from plunder-placed in fituations where they can gratify every luft and every brutal appetite, almoft without controul-and enjoy every advantage that ought only to be the reward of virtue, without application to honeft industry, it is not to be wondered at that they are funk in the scale of rational beings, and degraded below the level of virtuous fociety. Perhaps a more contemptible figure cannot be imagined, if properly confidered, than what this clafs of men in the general prefent to our view throughout Europe. Often without a fingle virtue, rolling at ease in splendor and profufion, preying upon the fruits of honeft industry, and devouring the hard-earned morfel of the virtuous peasant. But this is not all, their depravity of manners and boundless course of diffipation and debauchery, extend their baneful influence through all the lower claffes of society, and poifon all the channels of human happiness. In America, this clafs of men are unknown, the mafs of inhabitants, exclufive of fervants, confifts of those who possess in fee fimple from one hundred to five hundred acres of land, actually in cultivation, together with the tradefmen immediately dependent on agriculture, most of whom are likewife farmers, with the storekeepers and mechanics in the different towns; no part of fociety preys on the other, but all contribute to the general good. A mediocrity of fituation is common throughout the American States; there are few, indeed, whofe incomes will reach two thousand pounds sterling per ann. and the number nearly as fmall, and perhaps fmaller, who are reduced to a dependent fituation. This happy medium is productive of the most beneficial confequences to their morals and their happiness; it fupports that spirit of independence and love of liberty which laid the foundation of their government; it keeps far diftant that fervility fo common to the lower orders of Europeans, and preferves them from the mifery and wretchednefs attendant on following the vices of the privileged orders.

VARIETY

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »