State Papers and Publick Documents of the United States, from the Accession of George Washington to the Presidency: Exhibiting a Complete View of Our Foreign Relations Since that Time ...

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Thomas B. Wait, 1819 - United States

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Page 322 - Let us then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind; let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.
Page 322 - If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand, undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it.
Page 322 - I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong, that this government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth.
Page 323 - Still one thing more, fellow citizens — a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
Page 321 - ... rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye ; when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking.
Page 131 - It shall likewise be lawful for the subjects and inhabitants aforesaid, to sail with the ships and merchandises aforementioned, and to trade with the same liberty and security from the places, ports, and havens...
Page 324 - ... encouragement of agriculture and of commerce as its handmaid: — the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason : — freedom of religion ; freedom of the press; and freedom of person under the protection of the Habeas Corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
Page 324 - ... the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies: the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home, and safety abroad...
Page 324 - ... a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace, and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them ; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority...
Page 323 - Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

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