a partnership
agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some
other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest,
and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on
with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things
subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and
perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in
all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the
ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it
becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between
those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great
primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher
natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a
fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical
and all moral natures each in their appointed place. This law is not
subject to the will of those who, by an obligation above them, and
infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The
municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at
liberty, at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent
improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their
subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,
unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme
necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity
paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion and demands no
evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is
no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part, too,
of that moral and physical disposition of things to which man must be
obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to
necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, Nature
is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled,
from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and
fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice,
confusion, and unavailing sorrow.

These, my dear Sir, are, were, and, I think, long will be, the
sentiments of not the least learned and reflecting part of this kingdom.
They who are included in this descript