should say, It
implied a certain circumference of soil, through whose divisions and
districts every man suspected his neighbour, where every man was
haunted with the terror that "walls have ears," and only whispered his
discontent, his hopes and his fears, to the trees of the forest and
the silent streams. If the dwellers on this soil consulted together, it
would be in secret cabals and with closed doors; engaging in the sacred
cause of public welfare and happiness, as if it were a thing of guilt,
which the conspirator scarcely ventured to confess to his own heart.

A shrewd person of my acquaintance the other day, to whom I unadvisedly
proposed a question as to what he thought of some public transaction,
instantly replied with symptoms of alarm, "I beg to say that I never
disclose my opinions upon matters either of religion or politics to any
one." What did this answer imply as to the political government of the
country where it was given?

Is it characteristic of a free state or a tyranny?

One of the first and highest duties that falls to the lot of a human
creature, is that which he owes to the aggregate of reasonable beings
inhabiting what he calls his country. Our duties are then most solemn
and elevating, when they are calculated to affect the well being of the
greatest number of men; and of consequence what a patriot owes to his
native soil is the noblest theatre for his moral faculties. And shall we
teach men to discharge this debt in the dark? Surely every man ought
to be able to "render a reason of the hope that is in him," and give
a modest, but an assured, account of his political conduct. When he
approaches the hustings at the period of a public election, this is his
altar, where he sacrifices in the face of men to that deity, which is
most worth his adoration of all the powers whose single province is our
sublunary state.

But the principle of the institution of ballot is to teach men to
perform their best actions under the cloke of concealment. When I return
from giving my vote in the choice of a legislative representative,
I ought, if my mode of proceeding were regulated by the undebauched
feelings of our nature, to feel somewhat proud that I had discharged
this duty, uninfluenced, uncorrupted, in the sincere frame of a
conscientious spirit. But the institution of ballot instigates me
carefully to conceal what I have done. If I am questioned respecting it,
the proper reply which is as it were put in