ministration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they
will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations.
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion,
religious, or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship, with
all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the state
governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations
for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against
anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government
in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at
home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the
people, a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the
sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute
acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital, principle
of republics, from which there is no appeal but to force, the vital
principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well disciplined militia,
our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till
regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military
authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly
burdened; the honest payment of our debts send sacred preservation of
the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its
handmaid; the diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses
at the bar of public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press;
freedom of person under the protection of the _habeas corpus_; and
trial by juries impartially selected; these principles form the bright
constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an
age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood
of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be
the creed of our political faith, the text of civil instruction, the
touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we
wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace
our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty,
and safety.

* * * * *

=_62._= CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order;
his penetration strong, though not so acute as a Newton, Bacon, or
Locke; and as far as he saw no judgment was ever sounder. It was sl