not ignorant of their resources or our own. Let your good sense decide upon the comparison.

We well remember what you said at the commencement of this war. You saw the immense difference between your circumstances and those of your enemies, and you knew the quarrel must decide on no less than your lives, liberties, and estates. All these you greatly put to every hazard, resolving rather to die freemen than to live slaves; and justice will oblige the impartial world to confess you have uniformly acted on the same generous principle. Persevere, and you insure peace, freedom, safety, glory, sovereignty, and felicity to yourselves, your children, and your children's children.

JOHN ADAMS. 1735-1826. (Manual, p. 486.)

From a "Letter to Josiah Quincy."

48. DEATH OF QUINCY AND WARREN.

WE jointly lament the loss of a Quincy and a Warren, two characters as great, in proportion to their age, as any that I have ever known in America. Our country mourns the loss of both, and sincerely sympathizes with the feelings of the mother of the one, and the father of the other. They were both my intimate friends, with whom I lived and conversed with pleasure and advantage. I was animated by them in the painful, dangerous course of opposition to the oppressions brought upon our country, and the loss of them has wounded me too deeply to be easily healed. . . . The ways of Heaven are dark and intricate; but you may remember the words which, many years ago, you and I fondly admired, and which, upon many occasions, I have found advantage in recollecting:

"Why should I grieve, when grieving I must bear,
And take with guilt, what guiltless I might share?”

49.

From the "Thoughts on Government."

REQUISITES OF A GOOD GOVERNMENT.

THE dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society, depend so much upon an upright and skilful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that. . . . Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this

purpose would be thought extravagant. . . You and I, my dear friend, have been sent into life at a time when the greatest lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live. How few of the human race have ever enjoyed an opportunity of making an election of government, more than of air, soil, or climate, for themselves or their children ! When, before the present epocha, had three millions of people full power and a fair opportunity to form and establish the wisest and happiest government that human wisdom can contrive?

JOHN RUTLEDGE. 1739-1800. (Manual, p. 484.)

From his "Address to the Legislature of South Carolina." April 11, 1776.
50. EXHORTATION TO TAKE UP Arms.

IN such a case, no man who is worthy of life, liberty, or property, will or can refuse to join you in defending them to the last extremity — disdaining every sordid view, and the mean, paltry considerations of private interest, or present emolument, when placed in competition with the liberties of millions; and seeing that there is no alternative, but absolute, unconditional submission, and the most abject slavery, or a defence becoming men born to freedom, he will not hesitate about the choice. Although superior force may, by the permission of Heaven, lay waste our towns, and ravage our country, it can never eradicate from the breasts of freemen those principles which are ingrafted in their very nature; such men will do their duty, neither knowing nor regarding consequences, but submitting them with humble confidence to the Omniscient and Omnipotent Arbiter and Director of the fate of empires.

The eyes of Europe, nay, of the whole world, are on America. The eyes of every other colony are on this — a colony whose reputation for generosity and magnanimity is universally acknowledged. I trust, therefore, it will not be diminished by our future conduct; that there will be no civil discord here; and that the only strife amongst brethren will be, who shall do most to serve and to save an oppressed and injured country.

PATRICK HENRY. 1736-1799. (Manual, p. 484.)

CESAR had his Brutus, Charles I. his Cromwell, and George III. may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.

From "Speech in the Convention of Virginia." 1775.

52. THE NECESSITY OF THE WAR.

SIR, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God, who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitableand let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace; but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

THOMAS JEFFERSON. 1743-1826.

(Manual, pp. 486, 490.)

From his "Autobiography."

53. THE FAST FOR THE BOSTON PORT BILL.

THE people met generally, with anxiety and alarm in their countenances, and the effect of the day, through the whole colony, was like a shock of electricity, arousing every man, and placing him erect and solidly on his centre. They chose, universally, delegates for the convention. Being elected one for my own county, I prepared a draft of instructions to be given to the delegates whom we should send to the Congress, which I meant to propose at our meeting. In this I took the ground which, from the beginning, I had thought the only one orthodox or tenable, which was, that the relation between Great Britain and these colonies was exactly the same as that of England and Scotland after the accession of James and until the union, and the same as her present relations with Hanover, having the same executive chief, but no other necessary political connection; and that

our emigration from England to this country gave her no more rights over us, than the emigrations of the Danes and Saxons gave to the present authorities of the mother country, over England. In this doctrine, however, I had never been able to get any one to agree with me but Mr. Wythe.

From the "Notes on Virginia."

54. GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS OF THE ELEPHANT AND THE
MAMMOTH. 1781.

FROM the thirtieth degree of south latitude to the thirtieth of north are nearly the limits which nature has fixed for the existence and multiplication of the elephant known to us. Proceeding thence northwardly to thirty-six and a half degrees, we enter those assigned to the mammoth. The farther we advance north, the more their vestiges multiply, as far as the earth has been explored in that direction; and it is as probable as otherwise, that this progression continues to the pole itself, if land extends so far. The centre of the frozen zone, then, may be the acme of their vigor, as that of the torrid is of the elephant. Thus nature seems to have drawn a belt of separation between these two tremendous animals, whose breadth indeed is not precisely known, though at present we may suppose it to be about six and a half degrees of latitude; to have assigned to the elephant the regions south of these confines, and those north to the mammoth, founding the constitution of the one in her extreme of heat, and that of the other in the extreme of cold. When the Creator has therefore separated their nature as far as the extent of the scale of animal life allowed to this planet would permit, it seems perverse to declare it the same, from a partial resemblance of their tusks and bones. But to whatever animal we ascribe these remains, it is certain such a one has existed in America, and that it has been the largest of all terrestrial beings.

55. THE UNHAPPY EFFCTS OF SLAVERY.

THERE must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis a conviction in the minds of the people that they are 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 just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference. The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest. But it is impossible to be temperate, and to pursue this subject through the various considerations 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 since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of Heaven, for a total emancipation.

JOHN JAY. 1745-1829. (Manual, pp. 484, 486.)

From the "Address from the Convention." December 23, 1776.
56. AN APPEAL TO ARMS.

ROUSE, brave citizens! Do your duty like men; and be persuaded that divine Providence will not permit this western world to be involved in the horrors of slavery. Consider that, from the earliest ages of the world, religion, liberty, and reason have been bending their course towards the setting sun. The holy Gospels are yet to be preached to these western regions; and we have the highest reason to believe that the Almighty will not suffer slavery and the gospel to go hand in hand. It cannot, it will not be.

But if there be any among us dead to all sense of honor and love of their country; if deaf to all the calls of liberty, virtue, and religion; if forgetful of the magnanimity of their ancestors, and the happiness of their children; if neither the examples nor the success of other nations, the dictates of reason and of nature, or the great duties they owe to their God, themselves and their posterity, have any effect upon them; if neither the injuries they have received, the prize they are contending for, the future blessings or curses of their children, the applause or the reproach of all mankind, the approbation or displeasure of the great Judge, or the happiness or misery consequent upon their conduct, in this and a future state, can move them, — then let them be assured that they deserve to be slaves, and are entitled to nothing but anguish and tribulation. Let them forget every duty, human and divine, remember not that they have children, and beware how they call to mind the justice of the Supreme Being.