Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/548

536 results from a short comparison between an address to the people, gratuitously proposed by Mr. Jay whilst president of Congress, on the 13th of September, 1779, and unanimously adopted by that body, with a passage in the Federalist or Publius, a book partly ascribed to this gentleman.

The indignation against the British form of government, and the ardent affection for ours, which the first breathes, are not considered as of much weight, except to prove that their principles were different; because, although Mr. Jay's conviction at the time is evinced by his resorting to the deity as a witness of it, yet conviction may be certainly raised and lowered by zeal, as well as by circumstances.

Without availing ourselves therefore of Mr. Jay's eloquence, we shall only draw out of it a few cool opinions and simple facts. He considers "equal liberty as our principle of government, our rulers as the servants and not " the masters of the people, and our governments as founded "in freedom; the British monarchy as crumbling into pieces, the parliament as venal, the country as oppressed, the people as destitute of publick virtue, and the government as violating the rights of mankind." And after contrasting the English and American forms of government, in his forcible style, he emphatically concludes, that one is the tyrant, the other, the servant of the people. It was the object of the address, to inspire the United States, by this fact, with perseverance in the prosecution of the war. Therefore, both Mr. Jay and the Congress must have disagreed with Mr. Adams, in the similiarity between the two forms, for which he so laboriously contends; or in his opinion, that the people addressed were enlightened.

The Federalist contains an eulogy of the English form of government, infinitely transcending the compliment paid to it by Mr. Adams, and incapable of augmentation. Mr. Adams's similitude between ship-building or navigation, and this complicated moral machine, allowed to it only a comparative degree of excellence. which might have been