inish and
lessen, to check and restrain the powers of the general government, not to
increase and enlarge those powers. If they were of the last kind, we might
safely adopt it, and trust to giving greater powers hereafter, like a
physician who administers an emetic ex re nata, giving a moderate dose at
first, and increasing it afterwards as the constitution of the patient may
require. But I appeal to the history of mankind for this truth, that when
once power and authority are delegated to a government, it knows how to
keep it, and is sufficiently and successfully fertile in expedients for
that purpose. Nay more, the whole history of mankind proves that so far
from parting with the powers actually delegated to it, government is
constantly encroaching on the small pittance of rights reserved by the
people to themselves, and gradually wresting them out of their hands until
it either terminates in their slavery or forces them to arms, and brings
about a revolution. From these observations it appears to me, my fellow
citizens, that nothing can be more weak and absurd than to accept of a
system that is admitted to stand in need of immediate amendments to render
your rights secure--for remember, if you fail in obtaining them, you cannot
free yourselves from the yoke you will have placed on your necks, and
servitude must, therefore, be your portion. Let me ask you my fellow
citizens what you would think of a physician who, because you were
slightly indisposed, should bring you a dose which properly corrected with
other ingredients might be a salutary remedy, but of itself was a deadly
poison, and with great appearance of friendship and zeal, should advise
you to swallow it immediately, and trust to accident for those requisites
necessary to qualify its malignity, and prevent its destructive effects?
Would not you reject the advice, in however friendly a manner it might
appear to be given, with indignation, and insist that he should first
procure, and properly attempt, the necessary ingredients, since after the
fatal draught was once received into your bowels, it would be too late
should the antidote prove unattainable, and death must ensue. With the
same indignation ought you, my fellow citizens, to reject the advice of
those political quacks, who under pretence of healing the disorders of our
present government, would urge you rashly to gulp down a constitution,
which in its present form, unaltered and unamended, would be as cer