This would be
more than we would have a right to expect under circumstances the most
favorable. Pressures on certain interests, it is admitted, have been
felt; but allowing to these their greatest extent, they detract but
little from the force of the remarks already made. In forming a just
estimate of our present situation it is proper to look at the whole in
the outline as well as in the detail. A free, virtuous, and enlightened
people know well the great principles and causes on which their
happiness depends, and even those who suffer most occasionally in their
transitory concerns find great relief under their sufferings from the
blessings which they otherwise enjoy and in the consoling and animating
hope which they administer. From whence do these pressures come? Not
from a government which is founded by, administered for, and supported
by the people. We trace them to the peculiar character of the epoch
in which we live, and to the extraordinary occurrences which have
signalized it. The convulsions with which several of the powers of
Europe have been shaken and the long and destructive wars in which
all were engaged, with their sudden transition to a state of peace,
presenting in the first instance unusual encouragement to our commerce
and withdrawing it in the second even within its wonted limit, could not
fail to be sensibly felt here.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174