Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/80

54 occasion: it is an old and wise caution that 'when our neighbor's house is on fire, we ought to take care of our own.' For though, blessed be God, I live in a government where liberty is well understood, and freely enjoyed; yet experience has shown us all (I'm sure it has me) that a bad precedent in one government is soon set up for an authority in another; and therefore I cannot but think it mine, and every honest man's duty that (while we pay all due obedience to men in authority) we ought at the same time to be on our guard against power, wherever we apprehend that it may affect ourselves or our fellow-subjects."

Hamilton pleaded that he was unequal to such an undertaking, that he labored under the weight of many years, and that he was borne down with great infirmities of body. But old and weak as he was, he declared it to be his duty, if required, to go to the utmost part of the land, if his service would be of any use to stop persecutions set on foot by the government, to deprive people of the right of remonstrating and complaining against the arbitrary actions of men in power.

It was usual, he continued, for men who injured and oppressed the people, men who provoked them to cry out and complain, to use those very complaints as the foundation for new oppressions and persecutions:

"It is the best cause; it is the cause of Liberty; and I make no doubt but your upright conduct, this day, will not only entitle you to the love and esteem of your fellowcitizens, but every man, who prefers freedom to a life of slavery, will bless and honor you, as men who have baffled the attempt of tyranny; and, by an impartial and uncorrupt verdict, have laid a noble foundation for securing to ourselves, our posterity, and our neighbors, that to which nature and the laws of our country have given us