Lynchburg Star

Passing on to a comparison of our government with that of any other nation, we find equal cause of gratulation. Ours is literally and truly a government of the people, administered by them for their own happiness. It completely protects them in the enjoyment of equal political rights, in the sacred rights of conscience, in the secure enjoyment of property, and the undisturbed employment of their mental or corporeal faculties. Is there a government on earth of which the same can be said? Is there another government, in which these rights are not grossly, are not systematically violated? There is none in which the liberty of conscience is not invaded by intolerance and superstition, in which political rights are not unjustly monopolized by the hand of violence or fraud. in which the rights of property are not sported with, either by open violence or an oppressive system of taxation, and in which the sphere of individual exertion is not limited by multifarious conditions and restrictions. In the United States we have no privileged orders, no monopolies, no standing armies, (deserving of the name) or vast naval establishments--those pregnant sources of tyranny and oppression, and concomitants of a wretched and starving population. Two great consequences follow, of themselves sufficient distinctively to characterize the lot of nations--light taxes and permanent state of peace. While these continue, the republic is in little danger. War and money are the great instruments of tyrants. The annals of the world, accordingly, shew that they have been the most powerful agents in the subversion of the fairest and proudest fabrics it has ever beheld.

But if we wish to contemplate the strongest attestations to the superior lot of the Americans over every other people, we ought to compare the situation of the private citizens of these states with that of the subjects of foreign powers. It is here that we strip the pageant of government of its gaudy trappings, and see its defects delineated, such as they truly are, at the fireside of the honest yeoman. The favoured sons of fortune assume the same characters, and deck themselves off in the same colours, with but little variation, in every clime, and under every species of government.-They strive to appear gay and happy, and even through a deceitful medium, are really thought to be so by the common observer. But in the middling and lower ranks of society there is no disguise. Among them there exists no temptation to hypocrisy, nor can they deceive if they would. The rags that imperfectly cover their nakedness, and the haggard looks of famine that appear in the faces of their wives and children defy concealment. On the other hand, where all is sunshine, when the light toils of the day are invariably crowned with success, where the labourer is rewarded with an abundant supply of his own wants and those of his family, and when every day affords him the means of increasing the circles of his enjoyments, joy sparkles in his eye, his tongue expresses the gratitude he feels, and he finds himself the centre of a circle of content and gaiety. Contrasted as this picture is, it is true and more than true, in its application to the husbandman of America and the peasant of Europe. We have already unfolded some of the causes of this marked difference. To detail them all would require a volume. Some of them are to be found in nature, but by far the larger part may be traced to moral principles and political institutions. Human industry is never so active, intelligent or productive, as when directed by the individual, without any interposition on the part of the government except to protect it and the fruits it produces. This is the proud and exclusive prerogative. of the governments established in this country. From this feature it necessarily follows that no more burdens are imposed upon the people than are absolutely necessary for the promotion of their welfare.

The time has been even in this country, when many of our wisest men doubted the feasibility of a republican government. But surely these fears ought now to be dissipated. Our system has already endured for thirty years, during which we have had to contend with greater difficulties than will probably ever hereafter beset us. Notwithstanding these dangers the American republic has stood unshaken amidst a storm that has subverted empires formerly renowned for their power, and which has agitated the whole civilized world. For twenty four years of this term we have enjoyed a state of uninterrupted peace, and have increased in numbers with a rapidity that is without precedent, and which is only surpassed by the still greater rapidity with which our wealth has advanced During this period, we have not been so intoxicated with our prosperity as to be blind to the defects of our system of government and laws. On the contrary, wisely considering a progression in knowledge among the best attributes of our nature, we have not been too proud or corrupt to profit by the lessons of our own experience, or by those of others.

Nat. Intel.