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

an advance in the knowledge of his du-
ties and his rights. 1t was step in the
progress of man in comparison with which
the Magnet and Gunpowder, the Won
ders of either India, nav, the Printing
press itself, were but the PAGES of pigmy
to the stride of giant. flo this step of
human advancement Germany likewise
lays claim in the person of MartiD Luther,
or in the earlier but Intellectual martyr
dom of John Huss, England may point to
ner Wickliffe as yet more primitive
vindicator of the same righteous cause,
and may insist on the glory of having con
tributed her share to the improvement Of
the moral condition of man.
The corruptions and usurpations of the
Church were the immediate objects of
these reformers; but, at the foundation of
all their exertions, there was single,
plain, and almost self-evident principle
that man has right to the exercise of
his own reason. 1t was this principle
which the sophistry and rapacity Of the
Church had obscured and obliterated,
and which the intestine divisions of the
same Church itself first restored. The
of reason was the result of inqui-
nv and discussion. Centuries of desola-
ting wars have succeeded, and oceans of
human blood have flowed for the final es-
tablishment of this principle; but it was
from the darkness of the Cloister that the
first spark was emitted, and from the
arches OF an University that it first kind
led into day. From the discussion of re
ligious rights and duties, the transition to
that of the political and civil relations of
men with one another, was natural and
unavoidable; in both, the reformers were
met iby the weapons of temporal power.
At the same glance of reason, the tiara
would have fallen from the brow of priest
hood, and the despotic sceptre would have
departed from the hand of royalty, but for
the sword by which they were protected;
that sword which, like The flaming sword
of the Cherubim, turned every way to de
bar access to the tree of life.
The double contest against the oppres-
sors of the Church and State was too ap-
.palling for the vigor, or too comprehen-
sive for the faculties of the reformers Of
the European Continent. In Britain
alone was it undertaken, and in Britain
but partially succeeded.
1t was in the midst of that fermentation
of the human intellect which brought
right and power in direct and deadly con-
flict with each other, that the rival crowns
of the two portions of the British Island
were united on the same head 1t was
then that, released from the manacles OF
ecclesiastical domination, the minds Of
men began to investigate the foundations
of civil government. But the mass OF the
nation surveyed the fabric Of their insti-
tutions as it existed in fact. 1t had been
founded in conquest; it had been cement
ed in servitude, and SO broken and mould
ed had been the minds of this brave and
intelligent people to their actual condi-
ton, that instead of solving civil society
into it's first elements in search of their
rights, they looked back only to conquest
as the origin of their liberties, & claimed
their rights but as donations from their
kings.
This faltering assertion of freedom is
not chargeable indeed upon the whole ma
ton. There were spirits capable of trac-
ing civil government to it's foundation in
the moral and physical nature of man; but
conquest and servitude were SO mingled
up in every particle of the social existence
of the nation, that they had become vital
ly necessary to them, as portion Of the
fluid, itself destructive of life, is indispen-
SADLY blended with the atmosphere in
which we live.
Fellow Citizens, it was in the heat of
this war ofmoral elements, which brought
one Stuart to the block, & hurled anoth
err from his throne, that our forefathers
sought refuge from its fury in the then
wilderness Of this Western World.
They were willing exiles from coun
ry dearer to them than life But they,
were the exiles of liberty & of conscience,
dearer to them even than their country.
They came too with Charters from their
kings; for, even in removing to another
hemisphere, they least, longing, linger-
ing, looks behind, and were anxiously de-
sirous of retaining ties of connection with
their country, which, in the solemn COM
pact of charter, they hoped by the cor
responding links of allegiance and protec-
ton to preserve.
But, to their sense of right, the charter
was only the ligament between chem, their
country, and their king. Transported to
a new world, they had relations with one
another, and relations with the aboriginal
inhabitants of the country to which they
came, for which no royal charter could
provide. The first settlers of the Ply
mouth colony, at the eve of landing from
their ship. therefore, bound themselves
together by written covenant; and, i'm