minds cannot bear to be always pained; the Creator hath, therefore
wisely provided that our tender sentiments should subside, in those
desperate cases where there is no longer a probability that any effort to
which we may be excited, will have a power to reclaim. But though our
benevolence is no longer distressed with the injustice of your measures,
as philosophers above the feelings of passion, we can speculate on them to
our advantage. The sentiment thrown out by some of our adventurous
divines, that the permission of sin is the highest display of supreme
wisdom, and the greatest blessing to the universe, is most successfully
illustrated by the effects of your general policy.

In point of magnitude, your little state bears much the same proportion to
the united American empire, as the little world doth to the immense
intelligent universe; and if the apostacy of man hath conveyed such solemn
warning and instruction to the whole, as your councils have to every part
of the union, no one will doubt the usefulness of Adam's fall. At the
commencement of peace, America was placed in a singular situation. Fear of
a common danger could no longer bind us together; patriotism had done its
best and was wearied with exertion rewarded only by ingratitude--our
federal system was inadequate for national government and justice, and
from inexperience the great body of the people were ignorant what
consequences should flow from the want of them. Experiments in public
credit, though ruinous to thousands, and a disregard to the promises of
government had been pardoned in the moment of extreme necessity, and many
honest men did not realize that a repetition of them in an hour less
critical would shake the existence of society. Men full of evil and
desperate fortune were ready to propose every method of public fraud that
can be effected by a violation of public faith and depreciating promises.
This poison of the community was their only preservation from deferred
poverty, and from prisons appointed to be the reward of indolence and
knavery. An easement of the poor and necessitous was plead as a reason for
measures which have reduced them to more extreme necessity. Most of the
states have had their prejudices against an efficient and just government,
and have made their experiments in a false policy; but it was done with a
timorous mind, and seeing the evil they have receded. A sense of
subordination and moral right was their check. Most of th