constitution" is merely temporary. As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to insure anything that we may bequeath to posterity; and by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight. Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet I am inclined to believe that all those who espouse the doctrine of reconciliation may be included within the following descriptions: Interested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men, who cannot see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it deserves: and this last class, by an illjudged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent than all the other three. It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of sorrow; the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us a few moments to Boston; that seat of wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us forever to renounce a power in whom we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city, who but a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have now no other alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg. Endangered by the fire of their friends if they continue within the city, and plundered by the soldiery if they leave it. In their present situation they are prisoners without the hope of redemption, and in a general attack for their relief they would be exposed to the fury of both armies. Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come, we shall be friends again for all this." But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me whether you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then you are only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon your posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say that you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant. THE FOPPERY OF TITLES FROM THE "RIGHTS OF MAN," PART I, 1791 Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character which degrades it. It renders man diminutive in things which are great, and the counterfeit of women in things which are little. It talks about its fine riband like a girl, and shows its garter like a child. A certain writer of some antiquity, says, "When I was a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." It is, properly, from the elevated mind of France that the folly of titles has been abolished. It has outgrown the baby-clothes of count and duke, and breeched itself in manhood. France has not levelled, it has exalted. It has put down the dwarf to put up the man. The insignificance of a senseless word like duke, count, or earl, has ceased to please. Even those who possess them have disowned the gibberish, and, as they outgrew the rickets, have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native home, society, condemns the gewgaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand, to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured within the Bastile of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life of man. Is it, then, any wonder that titles should fall in France? Is it not a greater wonder that they should be kept up anywhere? What are they? What is their worth, nay, "what is their amount?" When we think or speak of a judge, or a general, we associate with it the ideas of office and character; we think of gravity in the one, and bravery in the other; but when we use a word merely as a title, no ideas associate with it. Through all the vocabulary of Adam, there is not such an animal as a duke or a count; neither can we connect any certain idea to the words. Whether they mean strength or weakness, wisdom or folly, a child or a man, or a rider or a horse, is all equivocal. What respect, then, can be paid to that which describes nothing, and which means nothing? Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribes; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical nondescript. But this is not all. If a whole country is disposed to hold them in contempt, all their value is gone, and none will own them. It is common opinion only that makes them anything or nothing, or worse than nothing. There is no occasion to take titles away, for they take themselves away when society concurs to ridicule them. This species of imaginary consequence has visibly declined in every part of Europe, and it hastens to its exit as the world of reason continues to rise. There was a time when the lowest class of what are called nobility was more thought of than the highest is now, and when a man in armor riding through Christendom in search of adventures was more stared at than a modern duke. The world has seen this folly fall, and it has fallen by being laughed at, and the farce of titles will follow its fate. The patriots of France have discovered in good time that rank and dignity in society must take a new ground. The old one has fallen through. It must now take the substantial ground of character, instead of the chimerical ground of titles: and they have brought their titles to the altar, and made of them a burnt-offering to reason. LIBERTY TREE PUBLISHED IN THE Pennsylvania Magazine, 1775 In a chariot of light from the regions of day, Ten thousand celestials directed the way, A fair budding branch from the gardens above, She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love, The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground, The fame of its fruit drew the nations around, Unmindful of names or distinctions they came, With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued, Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old, Unvexed with the troubles of silver and gold, But hear, O ye swains, 't is a tale most profane, Kings, Commons and Lords, are uniting amain, From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms, Let the far and the near, all unite with a cheer, PHILIP FRENEAU [Born at New York, 1752; died near Freehold, New Jersey, December 18, 1832] THE PICTURES OF COLUMBUS PICTURE IV. COLUMBUS ADDRESSES KING FERDINAND Prince and pride of Spain! while meaner crowns, Exact obedience from some paltry tract This gulphy deep (that bounds our western reign What honor, sire, to plant your standards there, Think not that Europe and the Asian waste, Of Africa, where barren sands abound, |