Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1821-07-13

great objects TO attain: the hr>t, to cement
and prepare for ptrpetuity, their common
union, and that OF their pOsterity; tue second,
TO erect and organize civil and municipai
governments in their respective States; ana
the third, to form connections OF friendship
and OF commerce with foreign nations For
all these objects, the same Congress winch
issued the Declaration, and at the same time
with il, had provided. They recommended
10 the several states to form civil govern.
ments for themselves. With guarded ana
cautious deliberatiOn they malured con-
federation tor the whole Union; anl they
prepared treaties OF commerce, to be offered
10 the principal paratime nations OF the
world. All these objects were IN great
degree accomplished, amid the din o: arms,
and while every quarter OF our country was
ransacked BY the fury OF invasion. Inc
states organized their governments. all IN
republican forms; all on the principles Of
the Declaration. The confederation was
unanimously adopted by the thirteen states,
and treaties of commerce were concluded
with France and the Netherlands, in which,
for the first time, the same just and magnan-
imous principles, consigned III the Declafa-
lion of independence, were, so far as they
could be applicable to the intercourse be-
tween nation and nation, solemnly recogniz-
ed.
When experience had proved that the Confede-
ration was not adequate to the national purposes
of the country, the people of the United States,
without tumult, without violence, by their dele
gates, all chosen upon principles Of equal right,
formed a more perfect Union, by the establish
ment of the. Federal Constitution. This has al
ready passed the ordeal of one human generation
I'm all the changes of men parties thro' which It
has passed, it has been administered ON the same
fundamental principles. Our manners, our ma
bits. our feelings, are all republican; and ii our
PRINCIPLES had been, when first proclaimed, doubt
full to the ear of reason or the sense OF humanity
thew would have been reconciled to our under
standings, and endeared to OUT hearts by their
practical operation. In the progress OF forty years
since the Acknowledgements of our independence
we have gone through many notifications OF IN
tenal government, and through all the vicissi-
tudes OF peace and war, with other powerful ma
tons. But never for moment, have the great
principles, consecrated by the declaration OF this
day, been renowned or abandoned.
And now, friends and countrymen, II the WISE
and learned philosophers of the elder world; the
first observers of mutation and aberratlon, the
discoveries of maddening ether and invisible Pla-
nets, the inventors of Congreve rockets x ohrap-
mel shells, should find their hearts disposed to an
quire What has America done for the beneht OF
mankind! Let our answer be this: America, with
the same voice which spoke herself into existence
as nation proclaimed to mankind the inextin-
guishable rights of human nature, and the only
lawful foundations of government. America, IN
the assembly of nations, since her admission a.
mong them, has invariably, though often fruit
lessy held forth to themthe hand ofhonest friend
Ship of eqral freedom, of generous reciprocity
She has uniformly spoken among them, though
often to needless and often TO disdaintu ears, the
language of equal liberty, of ual justice, and OF
equal rights She has, in the lapse OF nearly
half century, without single exception, re-
spected the independence of other nations while
asserting and maintaining her own. She has
abstained from interference in the concerns OF
o. hers even when the conflict has been for PTln-
cples to which she chngs, as to the last vital drop
that visits the heart. She has seen that probably
for the centuries to come, all the contests OF that
Aceldama the European world, will be contests
of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wher-
ever the standard offreedom and independence has
been OF shall be unfurled, there will her heart,
| her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she
goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
| She is the wellwisher to the freedom and indie
pendence of all She is the champion and vindi
| Gator only of her own. She will recommend the
! general cause by the countenance of her voice,
and the benignant sympathy OF her exam =. She
well knows that by once enlisting under other
banners than her own, were they even the ban
| ners of foreign independence, she would involve
herself beyond the power of eNtlicaton in all the
wars Of interest and intrigue, o. individual ava
rice envy and ambition, which assume the Co
| lors and usurp the standard offreedom. Thefun-
| damental maXims of her policy would insensibly
change from LIBERTY to FORCE. The frontlet
upon her brow would no longer beam with the in
cradle splendor of freedom and independence but
in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial
diadem flashing in false and furnished lustre the
murky radiance OF dominion and power. She
might become the dictatress of the world. She
would be 10 longer the ruler of her own spirit
Stand forth, We champions of Britannia, ruler
of the waves! Stand forth, We chivalrous knights
of chartered liberties and the rotten borough! En-
ter the lists We boosters OF inventive genius! We
mighty masters of the palette and the brush! We
improvers upon the sculpture OF the Elgn mar
bles! Ye spawners of fustain romance and lasci-
vious lvricsl Come and enquire what has Anne
RIGA done for the benefit of mankind! In the half
century which has elapsed since the Declaration
of American independence, what have you done
for the benefit of mankind?
When Themistocles was sarcastically asked, by
some great musical genius of his age, whether he
knew how to play upon the lutte, he answered,
No! but he knew how to make great city OF a
small one We shall not contend with you for
the prize of music, painting, OF sculpture. We
We shall not disturb the eXtatic frances of your
chemists, nor call from the heavens the ardent
gaze of your astronomers We will not ask you
who was the last President of your Royal Acade-
nv. We will not enquire by whose mechanical
combinations it was that your steam boats stem
the currents of your rivers, and vanquish the
opposition ofthe winds themselves upon your seas.