Gazette Of The United States

There are two descriptions of bad watchmen, those who sleep upon their posts, and those who sound false alarms.—The question is, which is most dangerous in a community?—Undoubtedly the latter—in the same proportion as bad principles are worse than none; besides, false alarms have a tendency to lull the people into a fatal insensibility in a time of real danger, whereas a surprise will ever afterwards induce a proportionate degree of vigilance in an enlightened people.

Ignorance is the proper basis of a blind zeal—when united to credulity, it forms the materials of which the unprincipled kindle the flames of discord and anarchy. Knowledge alone extinguishes the fire. The patriot who devises a feasible plan of enlightening the people in respect to their civil rights, and social duties, deserves the confidence of his countrymen; and he whom Providence hath furnished with the means of carrying such a plan into execution, and whose purse-strings dilate on such an occasion, gives more substantial evidence of his philanthropy and attachment to the rights of man, than is comprised in all the harangues and addresses to the passions which have been uttered since the creation.

How numerous are the pretended friends to the rights of the people!—how few have come forward with any specific propositions to scatter the rays of knowledge among them, in such manner as to make their attachment to liberty the result of sentiment!

A correspondent remarks, that we sometimes hear of a restless turbulent spirit among the people in particular parts of the Union. This will forever be the case where the people see things through a medium presented by a few, in whom they have an implicit confidence—but from those parts of the country where competent schools and other means of instruction are provided, we do not hear the voice of complaint—the inference is plain.