ition, by the doubts, scruples, or fanciful
discontents, of a portion among themselves less in number than double
the number in the single city of New York."

Its doctrine, which divides the people into the best and worst part of
the population, is here denounced as "the never-failing source of
tyranny and oppression, of civil strife, the shedding of brothers'
blood, and the total extinction of freedom."

This report earnestly entreats the general government not to abdicate,
by _non user_, the power vested in them of appropriating public money
to great national objects of internal improvements, and declares the
final result of the doctrine of abdicating powers arbitrarily
designated as doubtful is but the degradation of the nation, the
reducing itself to impotence, by chaining its own hands, fettering its
own feet, and thus disabling itself from bettering its own condition.
The impotence resulting from the inability to employ its own faculties
for its own improvement, is the principle upon which the roving Tartar
denies himself a permanent habitation, because to him the wandering
shepherd is the best part of the population; upon which the American
savage refuses to till the ground, because to him the hunter of the
woods is the best part of the population. "Imperfect civilization, in
all stages of human society, shackles itself with fanatical prejudices
of exclusive favor to its own occupations; as the owner of a plantation
with a hundred slaves believes the summit of human virtue to be
attained only by independent farmers, cultivators of the soil."

Mr. Adams avers that the spirit of these recommendations indicates "a
proposed revolution in the government of the Union, the avowed purpose
of which is to reduce the general government to a simple machine.
Simplicity," he adds, "is the essential characteristic in the condition
of slavery. It is by the complication of the government alone that the
freedom of mankind can be assured. If the people of these United States
enjoy a greater share of liberty than any other nation upon earth, it is
because, of all the governments upon earth, theirs is the most
complicated." The simplicity which the message recommends is "an
abdication of the power to do good; a divestment of all power in this
confederate people to improve their own condition."

The recommendation of the message, that the public lands shall cease
as soon as practicable to be a source of public revenue,--that they