be called the just, is enough to make an exile. Such was Aristides, Cicero, and Sydney. The same passions are everywhere common to humanity. They have swayed, and will again sway our country. But sad will be the day when the wishes of the populace shall become the definition of treason, or the tumults. of passion mistaken for the duties of patriotism.

2. Next to understanding what liberty is, the great means of perpetuating it will be found in the adaptation of popular action to the new constitution of things. Nations, like individuals, are organized bodies. The state of anarchy is only a state of transition; never of permanent rest. And whether we regard a nation as subsisting under the lifeless civilization of China-the military domination of Russiaor the patriarchal government of an Arab tribe—we shall find them acting upon principles adapted to their mode of organization; without which, indeed, they might have continued their national existence, but must have changed its form, and its principles. If, for example, the Arab tribe, living under a patriarchal government, would give up the principle of social equality, or create an individual tenure in the soil, they would cease to be what they are-the un

been attached to them in the administration of the English courts. But it must be observed that only a small part of it was applicable; for, under the English statute, there were no less than seven kinds of treason, and some of them very indefinite; so that any one who consults iv. Blackstone, 76-90, will discover that, at last, it is only in America that treason is certainly and accurately defined.

subdued children of the desert-a living testimony to the truth of prophecy. If the Hindoo had abandoned the caste—the peculiar principle of his aristocracy— he would long since have melted into Mohammedanism, or now have opposed a less icy barrier to the progress of Christianity. Popular action, then, must conform to the organization of a nation, or that nation must change its organization.* What, then, is the

* There are but three ways in which aristocracy can be maintained:-1st. By a distinction, which is made part of the religious code, and perpetuated by the superstitions of the people; 2d. By military gradation, and which can only subsist where the bulk of able-bodied men are employed in military service; and 3d, Where the law, and not talents or industry, creates an unequal distribution of property. The first is exemplified in the castes of Hindostan ; the second was exhibited in the feudal system; and the third may be seen in the restriction on inheritances and sales which have prevailed heretofore in a large part of Europe. In America none of these exist, or can exist, till every thing which is peculiar in American political institutions have been destroyed. The destruction of primogeniture, fee-tail, and other feudal contrivances, has taken away the possibility of a continued ascendancy of particular families by means of continued wealth, unless there be with it the union of talents, industry, and integrity. The constant succession we see around us in particular families of poverty, or wealth, or competence only, is like the ebb and flow of the tides. Nor can this elevation and depression be prevented, except by the universal diffusion of that which every family and every nation ought to seek-sound principles with sound knowledge. These bring with them the economical virtues of frugality, temperance, and industry. It is true, these cannot prevent the inequalities of natural capacity; yet they modify them so far as to prevent total poverty or imbecility. Fools and geniuses are seldom such by nature; there is little of folly, which was not originally

popular action required by our organization? What should be the elements of social character in that nation, who are both governors and governed? that people, who have written upon their standard in golden characters, and unfurled it from the mountain top to the gaze of nations—that government is the right, and is instituted for the happiness of all?

There are two principles which are fundamental in all governments wholly free; and to which popular action must be adapted, or they must change their form. They who govern must know how to govern; and they who govern rightly, must themselves be right. Intelligence and virtue, therefore, are presupposed, by the very organization of our govern

ment.

They are the necessary elements of its existence. And this is peculiar to governments wholly popular. For whether we take a military domination, or an hereditary despotism, or a limited monarchy, or an aristocracy, or any other form which excludes the majority, the character of the mass, however much it may con

occasioned by neglect or idleness; and little of the admirable in talent, which had not its origin in industry and will.

The equality of distribution created by the law in respect to property and political privileges, is elemental in republics. But that species of equality, or rather levelling, which destroys the distinction between industry and vice, by destroying the property which one has acquired and the other lost, and the social distinctions arising from virtue and talents on the one hand, and vice and folly on the other, belongs only to the worst species of anarchy, in the worst period of human degradation.

cern themselves, has nothing to do with institutions directed by others. It is then the necessity, as it certainly should be the glory of our country, to cherish whatsoever is wise, or excellent, or elevating in the human character.

3. The most important object of popular action, then, under a free government, is to make the principle of intelligence general in the mass, and to elevate it as knowledge increases. What is intelligence? It is cultivated mind, the developed faculties of the human understanding. To be capable of that development is, next to immortality, the most glorious gift of God to man: to be permitted to seek it, a right guarantied by all institutions which do not seek to fetter soul as well as body. To seek it free as the mountain air-the very element of republics.. To seek it under forms which allure to heaven as well as adorn the earth-the privilege of the Christian system. This development of the faculties, which is a combination of knowledge and of thought, is the object of all systems and schools of instructions. But to attain that object there is, and there always has been, two very different methods of teaching. The one teaches to think, the other to repeat. The one teaches principles, the other rules: the one systems, the other particulars. About these different plans there are different opinions. The great majority of mankind, however, from the Egyptian to the Hindoo, from the Chinese to the Roman priesthood, have followed repetition; and even at this hour, the mass of

enlightened modern Europe prefer rule to principle, whether it be applied to the teaching of childhood or the greater affairs of government. On the other hand, a few in ancient and many in modern times, believed it better to exercise their own faculties than to have them moved by others. The philosophers of Greece, and the Apostle of the Gentiles reasoning with them, the men of science and the disciples of the Reformation, are of this school. What has been the result, as exhibited by history and observation, of these different modes of teaching upon the earth and its inhabitants?

A few men, while the mind was yet unfettered, in the early ages of Egypt, or India, or China, discovered the mere elements of mechanics, of astronomy, of written language; but, about the same time, the people discovered they could be relieved from the troubles of conscience, by just imposing them upon the priesthood; and from the cares of government, by just confiding them to some particular class, or family, who by some freak of nature had acquired the sole capacity to govern, and, by some still odder freak, had the power of perpetuating it. Science had done enough to enable monarchs to build cities, erect monuments, and sleep in the dust with their faces to the east; and then, deprived of its power to inquire, slept the dreamless slumber of indolence. And what became of the nations-the people? They learned to repeat. The million did as they had done. They continued to build sepulchres, write hieroglyphics,