Rhode Island Republican

To the Electors of the State of Rhode-Island.

Fellow-Citizens,

It is your duty to put in operation the most important right secured by the Constitution, as well of this State as of the nation. In calling your attention to the discharge of this duty, in the full, and effectual exercise of this right, I fervently desire my real motive may appear. Happy indeed is it for you, and auspicious to the best interest, and true genius of the country. that such is your vigilance, such your discernment, and firmness, that it is difficult, not to say impossible, for any one at any time, and whatever the political movement in which he may be engaged, so to manage as to disguise his motive. And when it is perceived and understood in all its bearings and relations, you are at once prepared and disposed to approve, esteem, and venerate ; or to censure, reprobate, and denounce the agent, This fellow-citizens is the best, and only pledge, for the preservation, and perpetuity of those precious, and invaluable principles, in the force and virtue of which you walk abroad in the majesty of men, and are authorized, and required to resist the specious, and inflammable doctrine of those whose carnal, and inflated hearts incline them to arrogance, insolence, abuse, usurpation, and oppression.

Were it not for this firm, and discerning vigilance, which like " the morning sun, darts forth its splendid beams," chases o'er the borders of the west the deep Shadows of the night, and awakens to fragrance freedom and joy, a glowing emanation from the moral, the social, the political virtues : Were it not for this (I say) how soon would clouds, and darkness rest upon us, and night abide forever ! How soon would the ordinary walks of life which have been wont to afford such rich refreshment in the generous exercise of faithful friendship, and sportive, and innocent gaiety and delight, in which each might hail his fellow as the legitimate son of ennobied liberty, and the trusty sentinel of a fair inheritance: How soon alas! would these estimable enjoyments be barbarously ravished from your possession, and yourselves goaded on in vocations of useless, and degrading drudgery, bleak and dismal as a winter's cloak, and desolate as a city in ruins !

It is, therefore, I conjure you to search with severity for the real motive of every political agent ; and for the motives of the present address. When found with sufficient certainty, compare them with your own conceptions of truth and sincerity ; with your own conceptions of what is just, and right, fair, and laudable, and acquiesce in, or discard them as they meet your approbation. It is not liberty that would require a blind, and implicit obedience : It is not the spirit of liberty that would be ready to yield it. Inquiry. is the soul of freedom, and fortitude its battlements.