ANNUAL SPRING ELECTIONS, 19 MARCH-21 APRIL 1790

the offices of government and to prostrate the other orders in society,
ought they to receive countenance and support in a pursuit so unwar-
rantable? Would you dignify such a conspiracy against the rights of so
many worthy fellow-citizens with the name of government? Would you
not suspect them to be as liable to be seduced from the paths of honor
and justice by the flattering prospects of personal interest to promotion
to office as those who only put in a humble claim to their proportional
voice in Legislation?
The social compact was doubtless entered into by individuals for the
safety of their persons and property. Some natural rights are given up;
but greater security for the residue is expected as a compensation. Gov-
ernment therefore cannot strip any class of men or even an individual
of his property and leave him to ruin without violation of the public
faith. The public arm is made powerful to relieve and not to oppress.
It is a maxim in the British law that there is no wrong without a remedy.
And shall it be said that we have thrown off that government to estab-
lish one less friendly to the rights of individuals? If you carefully attend,
gentlemen, to the complaints of your fellow-citizens, will you not dis-
cover a great defect in the administration of distributive justice? Are
not the existing laws unequal and oppressive? Has not the measure of
right been uncertain and fluctuating? Is industry protected and en-
couraged? Are the people contented and happy? Are not our seaport
towns and our State in general depopulating and going to ruin? Are
not the poor and dependant part of the people in want of employment
and in want of bread? And in the sensibility of distresses heretofore,
even in time of a desolating war, unknown among us, to what quarter
are we to direct our eyes for their culpable cause? Can it be thought
that heaven has doomed us to fall a sacrifice unless to our folly and
impolicy? Is it prudent, therefore, any further blindly to pursue the
road that has lead to those calamities?
Let us intreat you to contemplate the tranquil and happy circum-
stance of our once sister States, and you will behold them united under
a government, not perfect indeed, but perhaps the best actually exist-
ing in the world. You will behold them under the protection of just
laws flourishing in agriculture, arts, and commerce.-You will see them
as contented and united, nay more so than any other people on the
face of the earth-and need you go far abroad to discover their citizens
growing rich by commerce driven from your ports?
If therefore you have any feeling for the distresses of the poor, almost
starving in the streets of your seaport towns.-If you can be touched
with the sufferings of your seafaring brethren, if you wish the prosperity
of commerce, if you want just and equal laws to govern your courts of

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