Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/290

 266 SKETCHES OF THE

require our most faithful and most punctual adherence to our ti'eaty with her. We are in alliance with the Spaniards, the Dutch, the Prussians: those treaties bound us as thirteen states, confederated together. Yet here is a proposal to sever that confederacy. Is it pos- sible that we shall abandon all our treaties and national engagements? And for what.'^ I expected to have heard the reasons of an event, so unexpected to my mind and many others. Was our civil polity or public justice endangered or sapped.^ Was the real existence of the country threatened — or was this preceded by a mournful progression of events? This proposal of alter- ing our federal government is of a most alarming nature: make the best of this new government — say it is com- posed by any thing but inspiration — ^you ought to be exti'emely cautious, watchful, jealous of your liberty; for instead of securing your rights, you may lose them for ever. If a wrong step be now made, the republic may be lost for ever. If this new government will not come up to the expectation of the people, and they should be disappointed, their liberty will be lost, and tyranny must and will arise. I repeat it again, and I beg gentlemen to consider, that a wrong step made now will plunge us into misery, and our republic will be lost. It will be necessary for this convention to have a faith- ful historical detail of the facts that preceded the session of the federal convention, and the reasons that actuated its members in proposing an entire alteration of go- vernment, and to demonstrate the dangers that await- ed us: if they were of such awful magnitude, as to warrant a proposal so extremely perilous as this, I must asseit, that this convention has an absolute right to a thorough discovery of everj^ circumstance relative to this great event. And here I would make this inquiry

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