7302. REPUBLIC (American), Establishment of.—
In the great work which has
been effected in America, no individual has
a right to take any great share to himself.
Our people in a body are wise, because they
are under the unrestrained and unperverted
operation of their own understanding. Those
whom they have assigned to the direction of
their affairs, have stood with a pretty even
front. If any one of them was withdrawn,
many others entirely equal, have been ready
to fill his place with as good abilities. A
nation, composed of such materials, and free
in all its members from distressing wants,
furnishes hopeful implements for the interesting
experiment of self-government; and we
feel that we are acting under obligations not
confined to the limits of our own society. It
is impossible not to be sensible that we are
acting for all mankind; that circumstances
denied to others, but indulged to us, have imposed
on us the duty of proving what is the
degree of freedom and self-government in
which a society may venture to leave its individual
members.—
To Dr. Joseph Priestley. Washington ed. iv, 440.
Ford ed., viii, 158.
(W.
1802)
