Alexandria advertiser and commercial intelligencer. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1800-1803, 1803-09-13
From the ChaYlsa0n Courier.
NATURAL RIGHTS.


THE philosophers Of the shamoles =
France, when trade was brisk With sneh,'
were accustomed, in order to render 'ne'l
blood and ofal pslatabie, to season 1s now
and then with spice Of hot metaphysical
matter, made as unintelligible as poss'ole'
but ending in some general conclusion =.
vourable TO themselves, and fortified witf
the authority Of some celebrated writer.
The fraud Of this jargon passed undeteet-
ed, because there were but few who were
capable Of discovering the fallacy OF an
abstract deduction, and those few regard
ed theirheads too much, to hazard the .ex-
pertinent of refuting them. Robcspierre
with the Guillotine in one hand, and with
Citizen L.egendre, Butcher, and Legislator
and J. ]. Rousseau in the Other, was more
than march for all the wise and honest
men in France.
The same unfair, disingeauous strata
gems playing off in these Golden Days OF
democracy in America. The disciples OF
Pane and Palmer, aRea to be the discl-
pies of Locke and Hooker; and the advo-
Gates of the Rights Of Man. to be the adj
ovcates Of Right Reason. They makeup
hotchpotch of R,gbts as they call them,
and stamp IT With the forged, abused seals
of two of the greatest and best tnen that
ever existed.
We take it for granted that when in
political discussion, men talk OF Rights,
they mean those rights which practically
enter into human affairs, and belong to
man III state # seeiey: not those Rights
which belong to him IN state OF nature,
(by which state of nature we mean man III
rude state ofuncultivated nature,or as 1t
is called, the savage "a state) and still
less can they mean that abstract, meta.
physical notion, which those who chatter
about It, not only cannot define, but can
not possibly understand. To what end
should we discuss the Rights Of Man in
state Of nature, when We are not, and it is
to be presumed hope not, ever to be in thar
state? The citizens Of the United States
are not savages Jet. To what end dis
cuss metaphysical abstract notion which
never can enter into human affairs!
The writer TO whom we aliude as quot
ing Locke, certainly either does not un-
S derstalld that great man, or means un-
fairly. We say unfairly, for he must Ell
trer mean, OF indeed he means any thing)
to inculcate principles which are peculiar,
and applicable only to state OF natare,
for it is to that alone Mr.. Locke applies
the part which that writer has quotedl and
by that means TO bring down the Ameri-
can mind to familiarity with savage life;
or he must mean to impose upon the peo-
pie as the doctrines of Mr.. Locke appilca-
cable to associated man, what Mr.. Locke
himself has applied only to man in q
stare of nature, and which, as we shall
slew, he completely distinguishes from
thar which he applies to man in civlliz-
ed state, and which alone is practicable
among us. Though the writer may not
be deeply versedin "dedaaioss Of abstrad
,e9soaiag," and was therefore right in de-
clining it, as lie says, in favor of autho-
rity, still he had eyes to see the words he
has quoted, and therefore must have seen
that the chapter from which he has taken
his quotation, the very first words of
which too, by the bye, he has transcribed,
has this head TO it." Of The State Of
Nafn,e." He cannot therefore plead over
slghs in his defence but is guilty Of in-
tending an uncandid statement.
MIR. Locke mas given to the work from
which the writer has cited 50 indiscreetly,
the title, An Essay concerning the
True Original Extent and End Of Civil
Government. And he begins by tracing
the first rudinents of government in that
Justice which nature dictates to man in an