ABSTRACT
The liberty of the public discourses is so important as the liberty of the press, but it is of the same character as that liberty. “The most common vice among the inferior class of the Americans is drunkenness, particularly in the Southern States, where the early habit of drinking strong liquors is too prevalent among the people. “The manners and behaviour of the American people have been somewhat contradictorily stated by those who have visited the United States. “In literary talent, the United States have proved more prolific than in the other liberal studies. The Americans, like ourselves, are a thinking nation:—to think they must study, and to study they must read. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a rust upon mens’ understandings. ’Tis a destroying of civility, good breeding, and even charity itself, under pretence of maintaining it.—Gravity is of the very essence of Imposture.”
