A - DEFENCE OF THE there MEASURES OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. BY CURTIUS. pseud. John A TAKEN FROM THE AT! jesed, at LIBRARY 175245 A TILLS 1667 The Gordon Lester Ford Collection Presented by his Sons and Worthington Chauncer Fordh New Fork By Library A DEFENCE, &c. To the People of the United States. THE period draws near, when you will be called upon to exercise one of the highest functions with which freemen can be invested.They alone deserve the name who chuse their own rulers, and through them make their own laws. This is your prerogative! May it long remain so, whatever the infatuation and folly of other nations! And while we pity the low state to which their ignorance and a tyrant's wrongs have reducedthem, let us cherish, with the zeal of our fathers, the lofty sentiments of freedom, sealed with their blood. Devoted to liberty and justice, the history of the world should teach you, as you wish to preserve them, to be jealous and vigilant. It should teach you that rulers are more aphto.be.tyrants than ser. vants: and that, with whatever sanctity they may declare themselves the friends and guardians of your rights, they are most apt, under this insidious mask, to subvert them by a criminal career of ambition. It is true, that they generally flatter to betray you; and that while they are busied in the immolation of liberty, they are loudest in its praise. As then you value your rights, examine with an unbending severity the conduct of your rulers.The more important the duties with which a public |
