Great Britain. I will not, at present, dispute it, nor
mark out the limits and conditions of their submission; but will it
be denied that they contracted to pay obedience and to be under the
control of Great Britain because it appeared to them most beneficial
in their then present circumstances and situations? We, my
countrymen, have the same right to consult and provide for our
happiness which they had to promote theirs. If they had a view to
posterity in their contracts, it must have been to advance the
felicity of their descendants. If they erred in their expectations
and prospects, we can never be condemned for a conduct which they
would have recommended had they foreseen our present condition.

Ye darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, lives and
religion of millions depend on the evasive interpretations of musty
parchments; who would send us to antiquated charters of uncertain
and contradictory meaning, to prove that the present generation are
not bound to be victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism, tell us
whether our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the
miserable privilege of having the rewards of our honesty, industry,
the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled for,
wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have no check. Did
they contract for us that, with folded arms, we should expect that
justice and mercy from brutal and inflamed invaders which have been
denied to our supplications at the foot of the throne? Were we to
hear our character as a people ridiculed with indifference? Did they
promise for us that our meekness and patience should be insulted;
our coasts harassed, our towns demolished and plundered, and our
wives and offspring exposed to nakedness, hunger, and death, without
our feeling the resentment of men, and exerting those powers of
self-preservation which God has given us? No man had once a greater
veneration for Englishmen than I entertained. They were dear to me
as branches of the same parental trunk, and partakers of the same
religion and laws; I still view with respect the remains of the
constitution as I would a lifeless body, which had once been
animated by a great and heroic soul. But when I am aroused by the
din of arms; when I behold legions of foreign assassins, paid by
Englishmen to imbrue their hands in our blood; when I tread over the
uncoffined bodies of my countrymen, neighbors, and friends; when I
see the locks of a ven