The Arkansas Advocate

Our whole country.—The annexed is an extract from an able article in the last number of the New-England Magazine, upon the state of the Union:

Let the American who distrusts the excellence of our political institutions, whose heart trembles not at the thought of a change—let him go to Europe—let him look at the distressed and the convulsed England—let him cross to the distracted and unhappy France—let him penetrate still further into the regions of tyranny, and look on gagged Italy, and on bleeding Poland—let him but breathe a few months the atmosphere of despotism—and he will hurry home, blessing God that his lines have fallen in pleasant places.

In the name then of all that is dear, and all that is patriotic, by the toils and blood of our fathers, by the sacred interest of unborn generations, we conjure all America to beware how they allow the sanctuary of our political institutions to be polluted by unholy hands. We are of no party, we have no interest at stake on any question: but we love our country beyond any earthly love: we tremble at the slightest peril which threatens it: and we shudder to think that artful and unprincipled men may so far act on the honest prejudices and feelings of the many, as to induce them to sanction measures, which are fatal to the purity of our institutions.

That there are such men, and that they are party leaders, we feel a melancholy certitude; men, who for the accomplishment of a party, or personal design, would not stick at periling the palladium of our liberties, and jeopardizing the reputation or the interests of our country; and we hardly know how to put down the vengeful feeling, which would prompt us to instant and violent action. We hold such persons in greater horror than the robber or the murderer; and if there are beings who would be lightly punished by a long life of scorn and misery, and an eternity of torment, it is those who knowingly and wittingly endanger their country, to advance their own ends.