common felicity of his
creatures. An abridgement of the natural freedom of men, by the
institutions of political societies, is vindicable only on this
foot. How absurd, then, is it to draw arguments from the nature of
civil society for the annihilation of those very ends which society
was intended to procure! Men associate for their mutual advantage.
Hence, the good and happiness of the members, that is, the majority
of the members, of any State, is the great standard by which
everything relating to that State must finally be determined; and
though it may be supposed that a body of people may be bound by a
voluntary resignation (which they have been so infatuated as to
make) of all their interests to a single person, or to a few, it can
never be conceived that the resignation is obligatory to their
posterity; because it is manifestly contrary to the good of the
whole that it should be so.

These are the sentiments of the wisest and most virtuous champions
of freedom. Attend to a portion on this subject from a book in our
own defense, written, I had almost said, by the pen of inspiration.
"I lay no stress," says he, "on charters; they derive their rights
from a higher source. It is inconsistent with common sense to
imagine that any people would ever think of settling in a distant
country on any such condition, or that the people from whom they
withdrew should forever be masters of their property, and have power
to subject them to any modes of government they pleased. And had
there been expressed stipulations to this purpose in all the
charters of the colonies, they would, in my opinion, be no more
bound by them, than if it had been stipulated with them that they
should go naked, or expose themselves to the incursions of wolves
and tigers."

Such are the opinions of every virtuous and enlightened patriot in
Great Britain. Their petition to heaven is, "That there may be one
free country left upon earth, to which they may fly, when venality,
luxury, and vice shall have completed the ruin of liberty there."

Courage, then, my countrymen, our contest is not only whether we
ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind
an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. Dismissing,
therefore, the justice of our cause, as incontestable, the only
question is, What is best for us to pursue in our present
circumstances?

The doctrine of dependence on Great Britain is, I believe, generally
explo