The National Intelligencer And Washington Advertiser

WASHINGTON
CITY.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20.

How far have the governments, heretofore instituted among men, promoted their happiness?

To treat this subject fully would require a volume. It would be necessary to take an historical view of every nation that has existed from its commencement to the present day: From this view it would be seen how much happiness, and how much misery, governments have produced. But such an extensive inquiry is unnecessary on the present occasion. The general sentiment of mankind is made up respecting it. However prejudice may induce a man to value whatever relates to his own country, and to abstain from decrying its political institutions, he is fearless and impartial in the award which he pronounces upon the institutions of other nations, Let, accordingly, the opinions of all the nations of Europe be consulted on the form of government of any one nation, and it will pronounce it defective. Open any moral treatise that relates to the history of men, and you will find a general concurrence in the humiliating declaration that history is a record of crimes. Why is history a record of crimes? Not surely because men are so depraved by nature as to be incapable of virtue. Whatever priests may tell us on this point, we have a consciousness about us that assures us we were created for better ends. No. The reason is that tyranny has established its gloomy reign over the universe, and checked, if not eradicated, the best feelings of our nature. If this natural depravity and proneness to vice existed, all nations would be alike vicious and miserable. Whereas, the instances, though comparatively few. are still in themselves considerable, of nations elevated by knowledge and virtue to distinction and happiness.

Owing to the ignorance of nations they have been almost invariably led captive by designing and ambitious men, who, instead of regarding the good of those they governed, have pursued their own interest. Hence the abject vassalage, the oppressive taxes, the cruel punishments, the rigorous laws, and the exterminating wars that have covered the face of the earth. The mass of communities, composed of those who were the passive instruments of their masters, having no interest in the fruits of their labor beyond the means of a narrow subsistence, have felt none of those strong inducements to industry that animate the feelings of him, who is rewarded for his toil in the augmented happiness of himself, his family, and friends. Surrounding themselves sometimes to the languor of indifference, and sometimes to the hopelessness of despair, their exertions have only been excited by the dread of punishment. Powers, therefore, which, vigorously expanded, might have made a desert smile, have consigned to unproductive sterility the fairest regions of the globe.

The little, which man acquired by his labour, has been extorted from him by oppressive taxes, which have supported in magnificence the lofty monarch, and his sycophants in idleness, luxury, and vice; or have been expended in waging merciless wars dictated by the folly or vices of rulers. Death has been the general fate of disobedience to laws whose cruelty has only been surpassed by their folly. Every faculty of the mind has been arrested in its natural tendency to expansion. Opinions, religious and civil, now current in the world, have been punished with extermination. More human beings have fallen beneath the sword of tyrants, or in fighting their battles, than have perished by the natural evils of famine, pestilence and earthquakes. Indeed the two first have generally been the offspring of a vicious state of society.

This is not the gloomy picture of a disordered fancy or a misanthropic temper. So far from transcending truth, it falls far short of it. Nor is there a section of that part of the old world with which we are acquainted that has not realized all its horrors. Even at the present day, when the diffusion of knowledge and civilization of manners have mitigated the severity of slavery, the largest portion of the earth is under the dominion of absolute and inexorable power, and subject occasionally, or constantly, to all those evils that have been depicted.

Is there an American, that, contrasting his own situation, with that of those whose all depends upon the will of a tyrant, who is not grateful for the happiness conferred by liberty, and does not exult in the elevated rank he holds in existence, and in the numerous and rich blessings it supplies and secures? Is there an American, so degenerate, as to deem any price too great for the maintenance of his rights and liberty? If there be none, then will every American, in estimating the relative benefits of a Republican with every other species of government, while he appreciates the inestimable blessings of freedom, hold as of little consideration those small evils or inconveniences to which its preservation may give rise.