ABSTRACT
A great change is imperiously called for. e rooted moral and national evil, which must ever stand in the way of social improvement, and has been the peculiar curse of this country, is an (worse than injury) of the common people, generated at fi rst from the spirit of conquest, and nursed by the same spirit transfused into penal codes, systems of monopolism, and creeds of ascendancy, until it has grown into a disease, that aff ects all the higher orders with hereditary contamination. It is the scrophula of the proud and powerful, which has totally relaxed and loosened all the joints of society. It has spread its acrimony among the patriots of party, the philosophers of schools, and the most sequacious professions.— e standing exception even to the barren benevolence of general speculation is-their native country; and thus it has necessarily happened that the extended family feeling, which ought to bind the diff erent ranks of society into one neighbourhood, is resolved into an anarchy of separate interests, producing for many years past periodical and partial insurrection, and, of late, more connected and premeditated rebellion.
