The New Hampshire Gazette

Political Miscellany.
FROM THE AURORA.
Politics for Farmers.-No. 1.

You hear every day of men crying out for war-for navies--for extravagant expenditures of money-for alliances with one power, and for hostility against another power-and it is difficult sometimes to account for these strange fantasies.

There are certain truths, however, which the humblest man in point of information in the whole country can discover, and there are certain plain inferences to be drawn from the obvious facts, upon which no two men can honestly differ.

No man will deny that peace and the Security and happiness which it produces in a free government is the most desirable state of human society : no man will deny, that America owes to her pacific policy, that prosperity which has rendered her the envy of the world, and to which the unfortunate of the old world look for a safe refuge : no man will deny, that a pacific policy is that of all others inculcated by religion, and that nothing can be so foreign and destructive of religion and virtue as war and its concomitants,

A nation then must be opposed by some overwhelming necessity, some irresistible evil not to be avoided or guarded against, if it can be at all justifiable in deviating from the principles which ensure happiness-which are the causes of prosperity--which are the fundamental principles of religion.

Nothing but the obvious imminent danger of this happiness, and all the coincident blessings, can at any time justify a deviation from the system which produces so much good.

These, we repeat it, are truths which no man can deny.

Yet how are we to account for it, that every day you hear men crying out for war-for military navies--for armies-- for extravagant establishments and expenditures--all incompatible with our policy, our peace, and our morals ?

Why is it that men who affect to be the most violent sticklers for religion, are also the most vociferous declaimers for this anti-religious policy ?

Can any man say, that there is either piety, charity, virtue, or religion in such conduct?

But then people are at a loss to account for it--no doubt : men innocent of the world and unacquainted with the depravity which is produced by the lust of inordinate wealth-cannot be expected to account for contradictions so gross and preposterous among rational and free minds.

But if the plain man will look a little into facts, as they are plainly laid before him, he will no longer be at a loss to account for such extraordinary proofs of human folly and vice.

The United States are affected not by any evil cause originating within themselves, but by external causes acting on the people.

The nations of Europe, have in a manner realized the fable of the Salamander, they have lived in fire for several centuries ; no sooner had one corner cooled, but the fire of war broke out in some other ; and this has been their miserable fate for ages.

A system of government like ours has never before existed. At no period of time has there been a government before our own, in which the interests or the wishes of those who are affected most by war had the least influence or effect.

The warlike cries and the rage for mad systems, do not proceed from the people of the United States, from those whose interests and wishes are inseparable from peace and virtue ; those ravings proceed from external impressions. and disease produced by those impressions here ; and the causes are various.

Foreign governments, whose institutions and interests are dissimilar from ours- envy us, and endeavor to disturb our repose.

Nations whose policy is a combination of commercial monopoly and. war, to maintain that monopoly, look upon the United States as other sects look upon the Quakers-with jealousy-because our Quaker policy exempts us from all the variety of evils to which the savage and unchristian policy of war exposes them.

Our policy so salutary for our own people, like all human things, admits of an alloy, it tempts numbers from those foreign governments to come hither merely for a temporary term--to profit by our policy, and being enriched, to go away ; these persons spread through our ports, importing with the various properties and habits of their own nations, and contaminate many of our own citizens. Many of our citizens educated in the prejudices of the government which ruled us as colonies, still retain their early attachments and prejudices, and even the most pacific sect exhibits too many examples of the blindness of prejudice which can maintain a religious and a political sentiment at variance and destructive one of the other.

A disposition is evident in many to be discontented with a calm and tranquil prosperity: and a solicitude in others to bow down and rise upon the necks of their fellow citizens, over whom they fancy they possess either greater talents or greater riches, which conveys to them a more important idea than talents, genius, or virtue. Many persons educated after the prejudices and habits of foreign countries, and hostile to the simplicity and equality of a free state, become speculators in commerce, and repay their commercial credits by infidelity to their country.

These various classes of men, wrought upon by foreign agents and emissaries—several in the receipt of stipends from foreign governments;—numerous presses indirectly bribed and kept in pay by mercantile and consular favor for the purpose of influencing our people, and forming interests, either to retard the growth of our own nation to maturity, or to create interests or alliances with foreign governments.

It is from these various, and other subordinate sources, that we hear the cry for war—naval establishments—and extravagant systems. The peaceable citizen, content with the blessings of liberty, and with that security which a wise and providential policy has preserved for us; is never heard vociferating for war—it is not from the friends of civil liberty and equal rights—it is not from those who would be foremost in the fight, and bear all the brunt of battle with generous and noble ardor; it is not from such men that these ranting and ludicrous calls issue.

You hear them from men desperate in their fortunes or their hopes—and the moment you find an adventurer or speculator, on the verge of bankruptcy, or deprived of the wages of idleness; whether it is the gambler at hazard, or the rash hazard of illegal commerce; for this unfortunate and desperate description of men, their despair drives them to deeper calculations, and like the abandoned Catiline or the profligate Arnold—they turn their backs upon virtue, lay claim to honour while playing the knave, and end with becoming a sore on society and a disgrace to human nature.