ormerly called Revolutions, were little more than a change
of persons, or an alteration of local circumstances. They rose and fell
like things of course, and had nothing in their existence or their fate
that could influence beyond the spot that produced them. But what we
now see in the world, from the Revolutions of America and France, are
a renovation of the natural order of things, a system of principles as
universal as truth and the existence of man, and combining moral with
political happiness and national prosperity.

"I. Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of
their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on
public utility.

"II. The end of all political associations is the preservation of the
natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty,
property, security, and resistance of oppression.

"III. The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty; nor can
any Individual, or Any Body Of Men, be entitled to any authority which
is not expressly derived from it."

In these principles, there is nothing to throw a Nation into confusion
by inflaming ambition. They are calculated to call forth wisdom and
abilities, and to exercise them for the public good, and not for
the emolument or aggrandisement of particular descriptions of men or
families. Monarchical sovereignty, the enemy of mankind, and the source
of misery, is abolished; and the sovereignty itself is restored to its
natural and original place, the Nation. Were this the case throughout
Europe, the cause of wars would be taken away.

It is attributed to Henry the Fourth of France, a man of enlarged and
benevolent heart, that he proposed, about the year 1610, a plan for
abolishing war in Europe. The plan consisted in constituting an European
Congress, or as the French authors style it, a Pacific Republic; by
appointing delegates from the several Nations who were to act as a
Court of arbitration in any disputes that might arise between nation and
nation.

Had such a plan been adopted at the time it was proposed, the taxes of
England and France, as two of the parties, would have been at least ten
millions sterling annually to each Nation less than they were at the
commencement of the French Revolution.

To conceive a cause why such a plan has not been adopted (and that
instead of a Congress for the purpose of preventing war, it has been
called only to terminate a war, after a fruitless e