government of all. The great sentiment of
Alcaeus, so beautifully presented to us by Sir William Jones, is
absolutely indispensable to the construction and maintenance of our
political systems:--

"What constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No: MEN, high-minded MEN,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain;
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:
These constitute a state;
And SOVEREIGN LAW, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill."

And, finally, another most important part of the great fabric of
American liberty is, that there shall be written constitutions, founded
on the immediate authority of the people themselves, and regulating and
restraining all the powers conferred upon government, whether
legislative, executive, or judicial.

This, fellow-citizens, I suppose to be a just summary of our American
principles, and I have on this occasion sought to express them in the
plainest and in the fewest words. The summary may not be entirely exact,
but I hope it may be sufficiently so to make manifest to the rising
generation among ourselves, and to those elsewhere who may choose to
inquire into the nature of our political institutions, the general
theory upon which they are founded.

And I now proceed to add, that the strong and deep-settled conviction of
all intelligent persons amongst us is, that, in order to support a
useful and wise government upon these popular principles, the general
education of the people, and the wide diffusion of pure morality and
true religion, are indispensable. Individual virtue is a part of public
virtue. It is difficult to conceive how there can remain morality in the
government when it shall cease to exist among the people; or how the
aggregate of the political institutions, all the organs of which consist
only of men, should be wise, and beneficent, and competent to inspire
confidence,