current, or driven before it: now reduced within limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity enjoins us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts; to encourage them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain their place in existence, and to prepare them in time for that state of society, which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of the mind and morals. We have, therefore, liberally furnished them with the implements of husbandry and household use; we have placed among them instructers in the arts of first necessity; and they are covered with the ægis of the law against aggressors from among ourselves.

But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their present course of life, to induce them to exercise their reason, follow its dictates and change their pursuits with the change of circumstances, have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are combatted by the habits of their bodies, prejudice of their minds, ignorance, pride and the influence of interested and crafty individuals among them, who feel themselves something in the present order of things, and fear to become nothing in any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did must be done through all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance under its council in their physical, moral or political condition, is perilous innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator made them, ignorance being safety, and knowledge full of danger in short, my friends, among them is seen the action and counteraction of good sense and bigotry; they too have their anti-philosophers, who find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who dread reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendency of habit over the duty of improving our reason and obeying its mandates.

In giving these outlines, I do not mean, fellow-citizens, to arrogate to myself the merit of the measures.;

that is due, in the first place, to the reflecting character of our citizens at large, who, by the weight of public opinion, influence and strengthen the public measures; it is due to the sound discretion with which they select from among themselves those to whom they confide the legislative duties; it is due to the zeal and wisdom of the characters thus selected, who lay the foundations of public happiness in wholesome laws, the execution of which alone remains for others; and it is due to the able and faithful auxiliaries, whose patriotism has associated with me in the executive functions.

During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness, and to sap its safety; they might indeed have been corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved and provided by the laws of the several states against falsehood and defamation; but public duties, more urgent, press on the time of public servants, and the offenders have, therefore, been left to find their punishment in the public indignation.

Nor was it uninteresting to the world that an experiment should be fairly and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth: whether a government, conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution, with zeal and purity, and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should witness, can be written down by falsehood and defamation. The experiment has been tried; you have witnessed the scene; our fellow-citizens have looked on, cool and collected; they saw the latent source from which these outrages proceeded; they gathered around their public functionaries, and when the constitution called them to the decision by suffrage, they pronounced their verdict, honorable to those who had

served them, and consolatory to the friend of man, who believes he may be entrusted with his own affairs. No inference is here intended, that the laws, provided by the state against false and defamatory publications, should not be enforced; he who has time renders a service to public morals and public tranquillity, in reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions of the law; but the experiment is noted to prove, that, since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public opinion.

Contemplating the union of sentiment, now manifested so generally, as auguring harmony and happiness to our future course, I offer to our country sincere congratulations. With those too, not yet rallied to the same point, the disposition to do so is gaining strength; facts are piercing through the veil drawn over them; and our doubting brethren will at length see, that the mass of their fellow-citizens with whom they cannot yet resolve to act, as to principles and measures, think as they think, and desire what they desire; that our wish, as well as theirs, is that the public efforts may be directed honestly to the public good, that peace be cultivated, civil and religious liberty unassailed, law and order preserved, equality of rights maintained, and that state of property equal or unequal which results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers. When satisfied of these views, it is not in human nature that they should not approve and support them. In the mean time, let us cherish them with patient affection; let us do them justice, and more than justice, in all competitions of

interest; and we need not doubt that truth, reason and their own interests, will at length prevail, will gather them into the fold of their country, and will complete their entire union of opinion, which gives to a nation the blessing of harmony, and the benefit of all its strength.

I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellowcitizens have again called me; and shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which they have approved. I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me astray; I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice; but the weakness of human nature and the limits of my own understanding will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your interests; I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence I have heretofore experienced-the want of it will certainly not lessen with increasing years. I shall need too the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land, and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with his Providence, and our riper years with his wisdom and power; and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplications, that he will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures, that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship and approbation of all nations.

SPEECH OF JOSIAH QUINCY,

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, NOVEMBER 28, 1808,

On the following Resolution, "Resolved, that the United States cannot, without a sacrifice of their rights, honor and independence, submit to the late edicts of Great Britain and France."

MR. CHAIRMAN,

I AM not, in general, a friend to abstract legislation. Ostentatious declaration of general principles is so often the resort of weakness and of ignorance; it is so frequently the subterfuge of men who are willing to amuse, or who mean to delude the people, that it is with great reluctance, I yield to such a course my sanction. If, however, a formal annunciation of a determination to perform one of the most common and undeniable of national duties be deemed, by a majority of this House, essential to their character, or to the attainment of public confidence, I am willing to admit, that the one now offered, is as unexceptionable as any it would be likely to propose.

In this view, however, I lay wholly out of sight the report of the committee, by which it is accompanied and introduced. The course advocated in that report, is, in my opinion, loathsome; the spirit it breathes disgraceful; the temper it is likely to inspire, neither calculated to regain the rights we have lost, nor to preserve those, which remain to us. It is an established maxim, that, in adopting a resolution offered by a committee in this House, no member is pledged to support the reasoning, or made sponsor for the facts which they have seen fit to insert in it. I exercise, therefore, a common right, when I subscribe to the resolution, not on the principles of the committee, but on those which obviously result from its terms, and are the plain meaning of its expressions.