Contrast.
While the good people of Boston are not only reposing in perfect security from the dangers and alarms of war, but actually celebrating the victories of the allies of Britain in Europe, the citizens of Norfolk, closely blockaded by the British, are momently [sic] expecting an attack with Congreve rockets, and preparing to defend their property and firesides against the enemy, and the inhabitants of Kentucky and Ohio are lamenting their friends and relatives, scalped, tomahawked and burnt, by the British allies at the river Raisin.
Was this
so in 1775? Did the people of Virginia,
in cold blooded malignant indifferent, quietly witness the sufferings of the
citizens of Boston, Concord and Lexington?
Or are we now bound together by no ties of sympathy, interest or social
compact as a people? In 1775, Virginia
was the first to make the cause of Massachusetts her own calamity, and cherish
the idea of an African insurrection!
What changelings has mercantile cupidity made of men who called themselves
patriots! New-York too has been bleeding
at every pore, and losing hundreds of her most useful citizens; while
Connecticut, with less honor and good faith than a member of the confederation
of the Rhine, or a chief of a tribe of Cossacs [sic] or Cherokees, has refused
to furnish a single man to aid the common cause!
What is
the force of our constitution, our Congress and their laws? Is the federal compact a rope of sand, more
feeble than the old confederation! And
shall the people be compelled so to alter and strengthen the constitution as to
enforce the execution of legal requisitions
upon refractory states? What is to be
the result or remedy of this unnatural and detestable state of things?[1] Colum.
No comments:
Post a Comment