Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/511

Rh In the execution of religious sedition laws, each sect, when in power, appeals to its own party to determine, whether the complaints of their opponents are not excessively unreasonable. "They are allowed," says the law maker, "to preach freely, provided they will preach truth, and "they ought not to preach falsehood." Nothing can be more reasonable," is the response of the law-maker's party to the law-maker's appeal.

If the abolition of religious sedition laws has abolished religious wars. why may not the abolition of civil sedition laws, abolish civil wars? Admitting a similarity in their nature and consequences, a discovery by which the tongue and the pen are made to fight all the battles of religion, will probably be able to confine political combatants to the same weapons.

The experience of the United States furnishes a multitude of precedents in favour of this opinion. Constitutions and governments have been frequently made and destroyed, without war, commotion or inconvenience. But it was done in the absence of sedition laws, standing armies and rich monopolies.

These moral beings are generally contemporaries; either is soon followed by the others. The climax of their appearance in the United States has preserved its uniformity. A funding system, a sedition law, an army. So unfounded is the idea, that authors of sedition laws design them to preserve publiek tranquillity, that they never fail to provide armies to quell the commotions, which they foresee that these laws will excite.

If it is true, as we have hitherto contended, that free discussion is the creator, the preceptor and the organ of publick opinion; the guardian of national sovereignty and of religious freedom; the seedsman of political knowledge, and the guarantee of moderate government; this precious jewel in our policy is rendered inestimable, as another. link in our chain of national rights, necessary to bestow efficacy upon election. Our policy and experience, must