their date, and lessens
their power of mischief. If any thing happens while this number is in
the press, it will afford me a subject for the last pages of it. At
present I am tired of waiting; and as neither the enemy, nor the state
of politics have yet produced any thing new, I am thereby left in
the field of general matter, undirected by any striking or particular
object. This Crisis, therefore, will be made up rather of variety than
novelty, and consist more of things useful than things wonderful.

The success of the cause, the union of the people, and the means of
supporting and securing both, are points which cannot be too much
attended to. He who doubts of the former is a desponding coward, and
he who wilfully disturbs the latter is a traitor. Their characters are
easily fixed, and under these short descriptions I leave them for the
present.

One of the greatest degrees of sentimental union which America ever
knew, was in denying the right of the British parliament "to bind the
colonies in all cases whatsoever." The Declaration is, in its form, an
almighty one, and is the loftiest stretch of arbitrary power that ever
one set of men or one country claimed over another. Taxation was
nothing more than the putting the declared right into practice; and
this failing, recourse was had to arms, as a means to establish both
the right and the practice, or to answer a worse purpose, which will be
mentioned in the course of this number. And in order to repay themselves
the expense of an army, and to profit by their own injustice, the
colonies were, by another law, declared to be in a state of actual
rebellion, and of consequence all property therein would fall to the
conquerors.

The colonies, on their part, first, denied the right; secondly, they
suspended the use of taxable articles, and petitioned against the
practice of taxation: and these failing, they, thirdly, defended their
property by force, as soon as it was forcibly invaded, and, in answer
to the declaration of rebellion and non-protection, published their
Declaration of Independence and right of self-protection.

These, in a few words, are the different stages of the quarrel; and the
parts are so intimately and necessarily connected with each other as to
admit of no separation. A person, to use a trite phrase, must be a
Whig or a Tory in a lump. His feelings, as a man, may be wounded; his
charity, as a Christian, may be moved; but his political principles must