1

and get rid, while we may, of thofe tyrannical laws. It is true, we are as yet fecured against them by the

spirit of the times. I doubt whether the people of this country would fuffer an execution for herefy, or a three years imprisonment for not comprehending the myfteries of the Trinity. But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government ? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Befides, the fpirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A fingle zealot may commence perfecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every, effential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honeft, and ourselves united. From the conclufion of this war we fhall be going down hill. It will not then be neceffary to refort every moment to the people for fupport. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights difregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the fole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due refpect for their rights. The fhackles, therefore, which fhall not be nocked off at the conclufion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights fhall revive or expire in a convulfion.

QUERY

THE particular customs and manners that may

happen to be received in that state?

It is difficult to determine on the ftandard by which the manners of a nation may be tried, whether catholic, or particular. It is more difficult for a native to bring to that standard the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There muft doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of flavery among us. The whole commerce between mafter and flave is a per-petual exercise of the most boisterous paffions, the most unremitting defpotism on the one part, and degrading fubmiffions on the other. Our children fee this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he fees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his felf-love, for restraining the intemperance of paffion towards his flave, it fhould always be a fufficient one that his child is prefent. But generally it is not fufficient. The parent ftorms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the fame airs in the circle of fmaller Haves, gives a loose to the worst of paffions, and

thus

thus nurfed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by fuch circumftances. And with what execration fhould the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into defpots, and thefe into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriæ of the other. For if a flave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another: in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miferable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry alfo is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is fo true, that of the proprietors of flaves a very small proportion indeed are ever feen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought fecure when we have removed their only firm bafis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is juft; that his juftice cannot fleep for ever: that confidering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the

wheel of fortune, an exchange of fituation is among poffible events: that it may become probable by fupernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take fide with us in fuch a contest..

But it is impoffible to be temperate and to pursue this fubject through the various confiderations of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, fince the origin of the present revolution. The fpirit of the master is abating, that of the flave is rifing from the duft, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the aufpices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is difpofed, in the order of events, to be with the confent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation.

QUERY XIX.

THE prefent state of manufactures, commerce,

interior and exterior trade?

We never had an interior trade of any importance. Our exterior commerce has fuffered very much from the beginning of the prefent conteft. During this time we have manufactured within our families the most neceffary articles of clothing. Those of cotton will bear fome comparison with the fame kinds of manufacture in Europe; but those of wool, flax, and hemp are very coarfe, unfightly, and unpleasant: and fuch is our attachment to agriculture, and fuch our preference for foreign manufactures, that be it wife or unwife, our people will certainly return as foon as they can, to the raising raw materials, and exchanging them for finer manufactures than they are able to execute themselves.

The political economists of Europe have established it as a principle that every state fhould endeavor to manufacture for itself and this principle, like many others, we transfer to America, without calculating the difference of circumftance which fhould often produce a difference of refult. In Europe the lands are either cultivated, or locked up against the cultivator. Manufacture must therefore be reforted to of receflity

not