Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1825-06-14

pie. Frequent, multiplied elections,
have never been attended with the least
connections, and, even when for the
highest Offices, though conducted with
all the energy of freemen, though in
famed by the freest publications ofthe
press, they have ever been followed by
an immediate acquiescence in the con-
stitutional decisions
All powers emanate here from the
people and revert to the people. It's
our boast that, acknowledging, in their
own laws whilst in force, at all times
in the eternal laws Of justice, an autho.
rity superior to themselves, they have
not abused those powers. In our for
eign relations, whilst government has
been found competent to support our
rights, what nation has been injured
or insulted by the United States? In
our internal concerns, while the laws
have been duly and impar,ially admi-
nistered, can, during period OF forty
years, an instance be adduced Of citi-
zen prosecuted or depressed?
The complete success of the great
experiment made on the largest scale
in this country, this living proof that
men are capable ofself-governlnent, the
splendid example given by the United
States, has not been lost on mankind.
Events, perhaps anticipated, but which
we had viewed as belonging to posteri-
ty, have taken place in our own time.
A twelve month before you landed in
America 10 join her standard, not a
man in this vast continent, not man,
save the wild Indian, who did not &C
knowledge the supremacy of an Eu-
pear power. And now, within less
than the short span of one mans active
life, from Cape Horn to the sources of
the Mississippi, not solitary province
remains, that has not shaken Oft the
foreign yoke. History will record the
immense sacrifices, the acts OF hero
ism and self-devotion; the undlsmayed
perseverance by which those great e.
vents have been achieved Our govern
mcnt faithful to its principles, had nei'
Their excited nor encouraged the insur
rections. In being the first to recog-
LIE the independence ofSouth Ameri-
ca, the first publicly to declare that
they could not see with indifference an
hostile interference on the part of other
nations-that duty has been performed
which their position and their moral
station in the world had assigned to the
United States.
A new spirit pcrvades, animates the
whole civilized world. 1t has pene-
trated through every class OF society,
teaching every man, in the most OBJ
scure and bitterly oppressed, to feel
and to assert his rights; making, every
day, new converts, even amongst the
privileged ranks, sitting on the very
footsteps Of the thrones. And shall
the voice prevail of few infatuated
men, who only dream what they can
not hope? Shall the power be given UNI
to them of arresting light in its pro-
gress? Of making the human miEd
retrograde? The planets, also, to the
eyes of man, appear at times to have
retrograde motion; but they still pur-
sue their unerring course, in obedience
TO the laws of nature and to the first
impulse of the Creator. And now, in
the moral world, People, MOBILES, States
men, Monarchs, all are carried away
by the irresistible stream of public o.
pinion and of growing knowledge.
Do you ask for an irrefragiblc proof
of that overwhelming influence ? The
British Ministry, composed exclusive
ly of men who, ten years ago, opposed
every revolution, and were ,remblingly
alive at the slightest appearance of
the slightest innovation; they have, in
less than year, commenced the re-
form Of their ancient and complex
system Of laws, destroyed colonial mo-
nopoly in their own colonies, recog-
nized the independence Of South Ame-
RIGA, countenanced, if not assisted, the
Greeks, and, if we are not misinform-
ed, are at least on the. eve Of emanci-
pating that long oppressed, long injur-
ed people, the friends of America, tho
Irish nation.
The flame Of liberty has spread
from the Peruvian Andes, from the ex-
IRENE western boundary of the civilized
world to its most remote confines to-
wards the East.
Greece, the cradle of European ci-
vilization and of our own-Greece,
the classical land of firstborn liberty,
had, for centuries, groaned under the
most intolerable yoke. Her sons were
believed to be utterly debased by slave
ry, degenerated, lost beyond redemp-
ton: their name had become by
word of reproach, themselves an OBJ
ject Of contempt rather than of pity.
Suddenly they awaken from their le-
thargy-they fly to arms-they break
their chains asunder: they receive no
foreign assistance; Christian powers
frown upon them; they are surround
ed by innumerable dangers, by innu-
al d. |