of John Adams
and William Cobbett! * * *

Gallant crusaders in the holy cause of republicanism. Such republicanism
does, indeed, mean any thing or nothing. Our people will not submit to
be taxed for this war of conquest and dominion. The government of the
United States was not calculated to wage offensive foreign war; it was
instituted for the common defence and the general welfare; and whosoever
should embark it in a war of offence, would put it to a test which it is
by no means calculated to endure. Make it out that Great Britain has
instigated the Indians on a late occasion, and I am ready for battle,
but not for dominion. I am unwilling, however, under present
circumstances, to take Canada, at the risk of the Constitution, to
embark in a common cause with France, and be dragged at the wheels of
the car of some Burr or Bonaparte. For a gentleman from Tennessee, or
Genesee, or Lake Champlain, there may be some prospect of advantage.
Their hemp would bear a great price by the exclusion of foreign supply.
In that, too, the great importers are deeply interested. The upper
country of the Hudson and the lakes would be enriched by the supplies
for the troops, which they alone could furnish. They would have the
exclusive market; to say nothing of the increased preponderance from the
acquisition of Canada and that section of the Union, which the Southern
and Western States have already felt so severely in the Apportionment
bill. * * *

Permit me now, sir, to call your attention to the subject of our black
population. I will touch this subject as tenderly as possible. It is
with reluctance that I touch it at all; but in cases of great emergency,
the State physician must not be deterred by a sickly, hysterical
humanity, from probing the wound of his patient; he must not be withheld
by a fastidious and mistaken delicacy from representing his true
situation to his friends, or even to the sick man himself, when the
occasion calls for it. What is the situation of the slave-holding
States? During the war of the Revolution, so fixed were their habits of
subordination, that while the whole country was overrun by the enemy,
who invited them to desert, no fear was ever entertained of an
insurrection of the slaves. During a war of seven years, with our
country in possession of the enemy, no such danger was ever apprehended.
But should we, therefore, be unobservant spectators of the progress of
society within the last twenty years; of