within us--and finally, and above all, to thank God for the choice
displays of His goodness to the American people.

There are men who deny the virtue of the Revolution. They do it in
obedience to the doctrine that all wars are wrong. But those only can
consistently maintain this doctrine who also maintain that all
governments are wrong. The idea of government includes the idea that
there are governing and governed parties to it. In this country the
two are united. But all governments which have ever existed, including
our own, make war upon those who forcibly question their authority,
undermine their power, violate their laws, outrage the persons or
property of their citizens. These are acts of hostility against a
state, and are prevented or redressed by force--the element of war.
Therefore, in principle, the daily operations of a government in time
of peace are not to be distinguished from its movements in war; and in
war as well as in peace each government is responsible for the manner
in which it exercises its authority.

If we may employ force in support of good government, we may also
employ force in the overthrow of a bad government. If we may forcibly
defend a natural right, we may employ force to regain natural rights
of which we have been disseized. It is admitted amongst us that of all
wars the Revolution is the most easily to be defended; but I desire to
see it occupy the high moral ground which the most paternal and
beneficial government occupies when it defends the natural and
inalienable rights of its citizens.

The real question was this: Who may of right govern the North American
colonies? the colonists themselves, or the Parliament of Great Britain?
In the colonies there was no difference of opinion upon this point,
though there was some as to the mode of securing its exercise. If,
then, the right of self-government were in the colonists, did they use
all proper means of securing its exercise previous to a resort to
arms? They spent ten years in the work of petition, remonstrance and
expostulation--and those ten years of experience convinced the people
that the policy of the British Ministry and Parliament was fixed and
irreversible; that there was only resistance to the execution of this
policy on the one hand, and submission, which must end in abject
slavery, on the other. If the American Revolution be morally
indefensible, then not only are all wars indefensible, but all human
governm