University of Virginia Library

CHARTERS.[47]

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power.
America has set the example and France has followed it, of
charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the
practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced
the most triumphant epoch of its history, and the
most consoling presage of its happiness. We look back,
already, with astonishment, at the daring outrages committed
by despotism, on the reason and rights of man; we look forward
with joy, to the period, when it shall be despoiled of all
its usurpations, and bound forever in the chains, with which
it had loaded its miserable victims.

In proportion to the value of this revolution; in proportion
to the importance of instruments, every word of which decides
a question between power and liberty; in proportion to

the solemnity of acts, proclaiming the will authenticated by
the seal of the people, the only earthly source of authority,
ought to be the vigilance with which they are guarded by
every citizen in private life, and the circumspection with
which they are executed by every citizen in public trust.

As compacts, charters of government are superior in obligation
to all others, because they give effect to all others. As
truths, none can be more sacred, because they are bound, on
the conscience by the religious sanctions of an oath. As
metes and bounds of government, they transcend all other
land-marks, because every public usurpation is an encroachment
on the private right, not of one, but of all.

The citizens of the United States have peculiar motives to
support the energy of their constitutional charters.

Having originated the experiment, their merit will be estimated
by its success.

The complicated form of their political system arising from
the partition of government between the states and the union,
and from the separations and subdivisions of the several
departments in each, requires a more than common reverence
for authority which is to preserve order thro' the whole.

Being republicans, they must be anxious to establish the
efficacy of popular charters, in defending liberty against
power, and power against licentiousness; and in keeping
every portion of power within its proper limits; by this means
discomforting the partizans of anti-republican contrivances
for the purpose.

All power has been traced up to opinion. The stability of
all governments and security of all rights may be traced to
the same source. The most arbitrary government is controlled
where the public opinion is fixed. The despot of
Constantinople dares not lay a new tax, because every slave
thinks he ought not. The most systematic governments are
turned by the slightest impulse from their regular path, where
public opinion no longer holds them in it. We see at this
moment the executive magistrate of Great-Britain, exercising
under the authority of the representatives of the people, a
legislative power over the West-India commerce.

How devoutly is it to be wished, then, that the public opinion
of the United States should be enlightened; that it should
attach itself to their governments as delineated in great charters,
derived not from the usurped power of kings, but from
the legitimate authority of the people; and that it should
guarantee, with a holy zeal, these political scriptures from
every attempt to add to or diminish from them. Liberty
and order will never be perfectly safe, until a trespass on the
constitutional provisions for either, shall be felt with the
same keenness that resents an invasion of the dearest rights,
until every citizen shall be an Argus to espy, and an Ægeon to
avenge, the unhallowed deed.