s, after effecting the Revolution
and the independence of their country, by proclaiming this system of
beneficent political philosophy, established an entirely different one
in the constitution assigned to its government. This philosophy, then,
is the basis of the American Constitution.

It is, moreover, a true philosophy, deduced from the nature of man and
the character of the Creator. If there were no supreme law, then the
world would be a scene of universal anarchy, resulting from the
eternal conflict of peculiar institutions and antagonistic laws. There
being such a universal law, if any human constitution and laws
differing from it could have any authority, then that universal law
could not be supreme. That supreme law is necessarily based on the
equality of nations, of races, and of men. It is a simple,
self-evident basis. One nation, race, or individual, may not oppress
or injure another, because the safety and welfare of each is essential
to the common safety and welfare of all. If all are not equal and
free, then who is entitled to be free, and what evidence of his
superiority can he bring from nature or revelation? All men
necessarily have a common interest in the promulgation and maintenance
of these principles, because it is equally in the nature of men to be
content with the enjoyment of their just rights, and to be
discontented under the privation of them. Just so far as these
principles practically prevail, the stringency of government is safely
relaxed, and peace and harmony obtain. But men cannot maintain these
principles, or even comprehend them, without a very considerable
advance in knowledge and virtue. The law of nations, designed to
preserve peace among mankind, was unknown to the ancients. It has been
perfected in our own times, by means of the more general dissemination
of knowledge and practice of the virtues inculcated by Christianity.
To disseminate knowledge, and to increase virtue therefore among men,
is to establish and maintain the principles on which the recovery and
preservation of their inherent natural rights depend; and the State
that does this most faithfully, advances most effectually the common
cause of Human Nature.

For myself, I am sure that this cause is not a dream, but a reality.
Have not all men consciousness of a property in the memory of human
transactions available for the same great purposes, the security of
their individual rights, and the perfection of their individ