Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from An Address, Delivered at Washington Square, Rochester, July Fourth, A. D. 1842
The very instrument by which the ties of political connection with the parent country were severed, recognized the people as the true source of power, and acknowledged that the right was inhe rent in them to frame their own government according to their own will, leaving it to their own judgment, to adapt its form to their own security and happiness. It was indeed farther supposed that the people themselves might be safely entrusted with the essential powers of government, and that there was a just propriety in leaving the ultimate power in their hands, to control their own agents, and thus to in?uence the legislation which was to prescribe a rule for all.
It was a new and bold experiment in the history of political sci ence. Though some philosophical dreamers had described, in glowing and poetical language, the beauty, simplicity, and happiness ofa pure republic; where there should be no disturbances from the violence ofpassion; no miseries from the oppression of power; no debasement from inequality of condition, yet it was considered as but the fanciful vision of an enthusiastic brain, and incapable of practical realization. However beautiful and however true in theory it might appear, it was not supposed that the capacity of man for self government, could ever be practically demonstrated by experiment. That experiment was, however, commenced by our patriot fathers, and we are now continuing it in these United States. It is yet too soon to pronounce with confidence that it has been de monstrated by full success. Sixty years in the history of nations, is too brief a period to test the soundness of a principle so impor tant in political science. The eyes of the wise and good in other lands are turned towards us with intense interest, and they mark our sometimes faltering steps with almost painful anxiety.
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